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63d Congress, ) HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, j Kept. 300 . 
8d Session . j | Part 1. 


RIVERS AND HARBORS APPROPRIATION BILL. 


February 24, 1914.—Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state 
of the Union and ordered to be printed. 

_ 33 y 

Li fan*** * 4 * 4 * 

Mr. Sparkman, from the^Committee on Rivers and Harbors, sub¬ 
mitted the following 

REPORT. 


[To accompany H. R. 13811.] 

The Committee on Rivers and Harbors, having had under consider¬ 
ation House bill 13811, files the same and respectfully reports thereon, 
recommending that the bill do pass. 

The bill appropriates in cash $39,227,504, and authorizes $4,061,500 
in addition, the whole aggregating $43,289,004. The authorizations 
are $3,000,000 for the Ohio River; $1,000,000 for the Delaware River 
from Allegheny Avenue, Philadelphia, to the sea; and $61,500 for 
Beverly Harbor, Mass. The $3,000,000 for the Ohio River is a part 
of the $5,000,000 required to be furnished annually under a declara¬ 
tion in the rivers and harbors bill passed in 1910 of an intention to 
complete the improvement in 12 years, the provision having been 
construed by the committee to mean that the amount necessary to 
complete the project shall be appropriated within that period. 

The aggregate of the bill may, at first glance, appear large, but 
when we consider the demand, indeed, the necessity, for river and 
harbor improvement, as shown among other things by the large num¬ 
ber of new projects before Congress, together with the total of esti¬ 
mates furnished by the Chief of Engineers of the amounts necessary 
to carry on unfinished works under projects heretofore adopted, and 
to maintain those already completed, it is not unnecessarily large, 
but is entirely within reasonable bounds. 

ESTIMATES, REDUCTIONS, AND INCREASES. 

The estimates submitted by the Chief of Engineers for the prose¬ 
cution of works under way and for maintenance amount to 
$34,016,395, to be applied to 245 works, approximately $4,000,000 
being for maintenance. The balance is to carry on projects 
already begun but not completed. To this amount should be added 












2 RIVERS AND HARBORS APPROPRIATION BILL. 

$250,000 for examinations, surveys, and contingencies, making a \/- 
total of original estimates reaching $34,266,395. By carefully 
going over the estimates some of these items were reduced by the 
committee, the whole of such reductions amounting to $1,031,000. 
But against these reductions are quite a number of increases, aggre¬ 
gating $4,260,780, the chief items being $1,000,000 for the Missis¬ 
sippi River between Head of the Passes and the mouth of the Ohio 
River; $1,185,000 for Galveston Harbor, or Galveston Channel, 
as it is called; $125,000 for Pollock Rip Channel, Mass.; $273,380 
for Harbor Beach harbor of refuge, Michigan; $167,400 for Racine 
Harbor, Wis.; $100,000 for Columbia River at The Dalles, Oreg. and 
Wash.; and an authorization of $1,000,000 for the Delaware River 
from Philadelphia to the sea. 

The increase for the Mississippi River was thought advisable m 
view of a desire on the part of the Mississippi River Commission and 
of the engineers to prosecute more rapidly the work of bank revet¬ 
ment and that of levee construction so far as the same are in the 
interest of navigation; moreover, this increase was in accordance 
with the recommendation of the Mississippi River Commission. 

Although a much larger amount in the nature of a contract author¬ 
ization was requested of the committee, it is thought that the amount * 
given will be sufficient to meet the requirements of navigation, and 
that it is as much as should, in view of the requirements of other 
projects, be allowed in this bill, and quite as much as will likely be 
expended between this and March 4, next year, when another bill will 
be due. 

The bill of 1913 as it passed the House carried a provision extend¬ 
ing the jurisdiction of the Mississippi River Commission to cover 
levees constructed in the interest of navigation from the mouth of 
the Ohio River to Rock Island, Ill. This provision, however, was 
changed in the Senate so as to provide for an examination and survey 
by the Mississippi River Commission over the stretch mentioned, and 
this provision was incorporated in the bill as it became a law. Since 
then a thorough survey has been made and a report thereof sent to 
Congress, which is to be found in House Document No. 628. With 
this survey and report as a basis for its action, the committee has 
inserted in this bill a provision similar to that carried in the bill of 
1913. As was said in the report accompanying the latter measure: 


> 


There is quite an insistent demand for this extension, the claim being made that 
there is as much necessity for that class of work above the mouth of the Ohio River 
and Cape Girardeau as below. Attention is directed to the requirement in the law 
that the money appropriated for that purpose can only be expended “in such manner” 
as in the opinion of the Mississippi River Commission and the Chief of Engineers 
“shall best improve navigation and promote the interests of commerce at all stages of 
the river.” 


Under the provision in this bill the commission and the engineers 
will be confined in the expenditure of money to work in the interest 
of commerce and navigation, which, it may be added, is the policy 
of Congress in making all such appropriations, a policy from which 
it has rarely, if ever, departed. 

The increase in the amount originally estimated for Galveston 
Channel is for the extension of the sea wall on the south side of Gal¬ 
veston Island, and is to complete an unfinished part of the project 
adopted in the river and harbor bill of 1913, under which that channel 


n. of d. 

22 ;9I4 





RIVERS AND HARBORS APPROPRIATION BILL. 


3 


harbor are being improved? The Chief of Engineers, however, 
in approving the project recommended that no appropriation for this 
extension be made until the city of Galveston or other local interests 
shall have donated certain lands to the Government, quieted all 
claims to the present San Jacinto Reservation, and given assurance 
satisfactory to the Secretary of War that they will construct '3,300 
feet of similar sea-wall extension, which the committee was assured 
either had been or will be done in accordance with the requirements 
of the report by the time the appropriation is available. It will be 
seen that the amount is appropriated subject to these conditions, 
and that it is fully safeguarded by the language used in the provision 
making the appropriation. 

The increase in the item for Harbor Beach Harbor of Refuge, Mich., 
is for the purpose of repairing damages to the breakwater caused by 
a severe gale last fall, and after the original estimates had been sub¬ 
mitted; while that for Racine Harbor is to complete certain improve¬ 
ments recommended in a former project, heretofore adopted in part, 
and which recent experiences show to be necessary for the protec¬ 
tion of the harbor and of the shipping interests using the same. 

The authorization of $1,000,000 for Delaware River is not, strictly 
speaking, in the nature of an increase, it having been recommended 
by the Chief of Engineers as both in the interest of economy and of 
a more expeditious prosecution of the work. It may be further stated 
that there were other recommendations for contract authorizations, 
amounting to $13,505,992, which the committee did not adopt, as it 
was thought the various works to be accommodated by such authori¬ 
zations could be as well cared for under the cash appropriations 
recommended in the bill. 

Several of the increases were made necessary by reason of under¬ 
estimates, either as originally made or as recommended for the coming 
fiscal year. But in all cases the increases, for whatever purpose, 
were strongly recommended by the Chief of Engineers. 

NEW PROJECTS. 

In addition to the items for the old, or existing, projects we have 
added 76 new projects, requiring in all to complete $38,684,700, while 
only $5,786,829 have been appropriated and authorized in the bill. 
The larger items are those for the Upper Bay, New York Harbor; 
East River and Hell Gate; Chesapeake & Delaware Canal; Norfolk 
Harbor, Va.; New London Harbor, Conn.; Willapa Harbor, Wash.; 
Oklawaha River, Fla.; Cumberland River above Nashville, Tenn.: 
the Sacramento and Feather Rivers, and Richmond Harbor, Cal. 

The most expensive of these are the East River, N. Y., to cost 
$13,400,000; the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal, $6,785,710; Sacra¬ 
mento and San Joaquin Rivers, $5,860,000; and the upper Cumber¬ 
land River, $4,500,000. 

The work on the East River, however, is expected to run over a 
long series of years, it being a class of work which, although impor¬ 
tant, does not require, in the opinion of the engineers, expeditious 
treatment, the plan being to do the work thoroughly, but somewhat 
slowly, always keeping abreast, however, of the demands of navi¬ 
gation. 


4 


EIVERS AND HARBORS APPROPRIATION BILL. 


The project for the improvement of the Sacramento and Featne* 
Rivers is also one which the committee regarded as worthy and ot 
great importance. The whole work is to cost something above 
$33,000,000, but as a greater part of the work is for the purpose ot 
preventing overflows from floods, and of protecting and reclaiming 
lands in the valley of the Sacramento and Feather Rivers, the State 
of California and local interests are to contribute all money necessary 
for the work except $5,800,000, which is recommended by the engi¬ 
neers as the amount the Government should expend m the interest ot 
navigation. The plans and the report indicate that the project has 
received the most thorough consideration that engineering skill 
could bring to bear, and that nothing has been left indefinite that it 
was possible to make certain. . 

The upper Cumberland might be more properly classed with the 
old projects, for prior to 1907 this stretch of the river had been under 
treatment by the Government, the river and harbor act of 1886 
having adopted a project for its improvement from Nashville up to 
Burnside, Ky., a distance of 325 miles, by the construction of 22 
locks and dams, together with certain works above Burnside, at a 
cost of $8,500,000, a 6-foot navigation being contemplated. Acting, 
however, upon the recommendation of the Board of Engineers, the 
river and harbor act of 1907 modified this project by eliminating all 
after the first seven locks and dams immediately above Nashville, 
except Lock and Dam No. 21 below Burnside. These eight locks 
and dams have all been completed, and the matter having been again 
referred to the Board of Engineers for further recommendation, & 
report was made to Congress February 4, 1914, recommending the 
completion of the work between Locks and Dams 7 and 21 by the 
construction of 10 locks and dams at an estimated cost of $4,500,000. 
This report is to be found in Rivers and Harbors Committee Document 
No. 10, Sixty-third Congress, second session, which the provision in 
the bill adopts with an initial appropriation of $340,000. 

The Chesapeake & Delaware Canal is a part of the intracoastal 
waterway system from Boston to Key West which the engineers have 
been investigating for some time under surveys ordered by Congress, 
but which svstem has not as yet been favorably recommended in its 
entirety. The purchase and enlargement of this canal, however, are 
very strongly recommended by the engineers, which, in the opinion 
of the committee, is one of the most important links in the proposed 
system, as it connects two great highways of commerce, the Chesa¬ 
peake and Delaware Bays, and would, if completed as outlined in the 
project, save in distance between Baltimore and Philadelphia, it is 
estimated, about 320 miles, and between Baltimore and the mouth of 
the Delaware Bay 184 miles, which, together with other advantages 
claimed, caused the committee to look with favor upon the proposi¬ 
tion and to authorize the purchase of the canal at a cost not to exceed 
$1,300,000, which is believed to be a fair valuation of the property. 
There is an alternative route considered by the engineers which may 
be used if the canal can not be purchased within the above figures, or 
resort may, of course, be had to condemnation proceedings, as Con¬ 
gress may deem best. On account of engineering difficulties which 
may be encountered in the enlargement of the canal it may be even 
better to adopt this alternative route, but that is a feature upon which 
we will naturally look largely to the engineers for advice. 


RIVERS AND HARBORS APPROPRIATION BILL. 


5 


The canal is owned by the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal Co., and 
appears to have outstanding 37,618 shares of stock, par value $50, 
held by numerous parties, including the United States Government, 
which originally paid $450,000 on the project, and the States of 
Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware, which contributed, respec¬ 
tively, $100,000, $50,000, and $25,000 to the enterprise. 

It should be added that the original estimates for the cost of this 
canal and its subsequent enlargement to a 12-foot depth, with suit¬ 
able widths, were $8,000,000 to complete, but in those estimates the 
maximum cost of purchasing the canal was fixed at $2,514,290. As, 
however, the committee fixed the maximum amount to be paid for 
the existing canal at $1,300,000, the estimated cost by the engineers 
is thereby reduced to $6,785,710, the difference between $8,000,000 
and the amount of the reduction in the cost of the canal. 

In addition to the purchase of the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal, 
the committee has provided in the bill for the adoption of one other 
link in the Atlantic intracoastal system, that from Charleston, S. C., 
to Savannah, Ga., as also that between McClellanville and Winyah 
Bay, S. C.; likewise three of the links in the system between St. 
George Sound, Fla., and the Rio Grande, Tex. These are sections 
5, 7, and 12. Section 5 extends from Mobile Bay to the Mississippi 
River, a distance of 125 miles, to cost $227,000; section 7 from the 
Sabine River to Galveston Bay, Tex., a distance ol 68 miles, to cost 
$475,000; section 12, from Brazos Santiago, Tex., to Rio Grande, 
a distance of 9 miles, and to cost $80,000. It will be noted that 
with the exception of section 12 the amounts appropriated in the 
bill are not to complete, only for the beginning and prosecution of 
the work until another appropriation is made. There was quite a 
demand for the adoption of other sections ol each of these systems, 
but the committee considered this un advisable, and believes it has 
gone as far as it should for the present in committing the Government 
to these works. The other sections can be considered from time to 
time in the preparation of subsequent bills and adopted in the order 
of their relative importance and as early as Congress may deem best. 

The new projects were selected from a list of 93 reported by the 
engineers mainly within the last two years, and requiring for comple¬ 
tion about $92,500,000. But the committee, feeling that it could not 
take care of all of them in the present bill, selected what it deemed 
the most urgent, expecting, of course, to give consideration to the 
remaining projects, and others which may be reported later, in the 
next and subsequent bills. These additions make the aggregate of 
the adopted projects, including those in the present bill, about 
$305,500,000. But this amount embraces a number of large and 
expensive works, such as the Mississippi River from Head of Passes 
to the mouth of the Ohio, the Missouri, the Ohio and East Rivers, 
which require for their completion about $150,000,000, the appro¬ 
priations for which will necessarily extend over a long period of 
time ranging from 8 to upward of 20 years, leaving the balance, 
about $155,000,000, to be furnished within a period of 8 years, 
if the suggestions and recommendations of the engineers are to be 
followed. 

Of the new projects adopted in the bill only 20 call for expendi¬ 
tures of amounts of $100,000 and upward; the residue—that is, 54— 
will require to complete sums ranging from $1,000 up to $80,000, 


6 


RIVERS AND HARBORS APPROPRIATION BILL. 


the entire amount required for these 54 items being $1,194,247, all 
but $120,868 of which is provided in the present bill. 

Two lists, one comprising the new projects requiring less than 
$100,000 to complete, and the other including those requiring $100,000 
and more to finish, each showing the amounts recommended for the 
entire project, the sum appropriated in this bill, and the number of 
the report containing the projects, respectively, are hereto appended. 

EXAMINATIONS AND SURVEYS. 

The bill also provides for 119 surveys, a somewhat smaller number 
than either of the two last acts carried, and it is believed that we 
have now reached a point in river and harbor development where 
the demand for new work mil be less with a resultant reduction in the 
number of surveys in future annual bills and in the number and 
magnitude of the projects recommended by the engineers. 

CONDITIONAL PROJECTS. 

Among the new projects there are 23 imposing conditions upon the 
localities and interests, respectively, to be especially benefited by 
them, a few of these conditions requiring local cooperation in the 
way of monetary contributions. The greater number, however, re¬ 
quire the performance of other conditions, such as the furnishing of 
rights of way, or saving the Government harmless from damages 
caused by overflow. A full statement of such projects and conditions 
is submitted with this report. 

GENERAL PROVISIONS. 

The bill contains a provision, to be found in section 8, amending 
the act approved March 4, 1909, providiug that all tugboats using 
the Potomac River, where the same is spanned by the new railway 
and new highway bridges, be equipped with devices for lowering 
their smokestacks, so as to include power boats. This provision was 
strongly recommended by the War Department, and is intended to 
minimize, as much as possible, the opening of the draws of these 
bridges. It was urged by the department that power boats, being 
largely for pleasure, should have no greater rights or privileges than 
tugboats, which are used for business purposes. This view was shared 
by the committee, and the change was recommended. Copy of the 
letter from the Acting Chief of Engineers, dated February 12, 1914, 
together with accompanying statement showing the necessity for 
the amendment, is hereto attached. 

Another new provision is contained in section 9, which empowers 
the Secretary of War to define and establish anchorage grounds for 
vessels in harbors, rivers, bays, and other navigable waters of the 
United States whenever he deems the establishment of such anchor¬ 
age grounds desirable and upon the recommendation of the Chief of 
Engineers to adopt suitable rules for the regulation thereof. It will 
be observed that these regulations are to be enforced by the Revenue- 
Cutter Service under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury, 
except at points or places where there is no revenue cutter available, 
when the enforcement is left to the War Department. This provi¬ 
sion is also strongly recommended by the War Department, and is 


RIVERS AND HARBORS APPROPRIATION BILL. 


7 


regarded by the committee as a very important one. The War De¬ 
partment having charge of the improvement and development of 
harbors and rivers for the purposes of navigation, is much better 
qualified to determine the locality, extent, and boundaries of anchor¬ 
age grounds, and to establish the same with intelligent reference to 
present and future conditions, and the necessities of navigation, than 
is any other department of the Government; while the Treasury De¬ 
partment, through its Revenue-Cutter Service, is well equipped, in 
fact, much better equipped than any other department to enforce 
the observance of all rules and regulations regarding such grounds. 

The committee has given every possible care to the consideration 
of the bill, having devoted nearly 10 weeks to its active preparation, 
and a much longer time in preliminary work, during which many hear¬ 
ings by representatives and citizens of various parts of the country were 
held, from which much useful information was gained. The measure 
is therefore submitted with the belief that it merits and will receive 
the indorsement of Congress. 


Projects calling for an expenditure of less than -ft100,000 . 



Total cost. 

Initial ap¬ 
propriation. 

Wills Strait, Casco Bay, Me. (H. Doc. 1346, 62d Cong., 3d sess.). 

$16,500 
12,500 

$16,500 
12,500 
6, 700 

Tenants Harbor, Me. (Com. Doc. 12, 62d Cong., 3d sess.). 

Milford Harbor, Conn. (H. Doc. 232, 63d Cong., 1st sess.). 

6', 700 

Greenwich Harbor, Conn. (H. Doc. 289, 63d Cong., 1st sess.). 

35,000 

35 ; 000 

22,500 
35,000 
72,000 
56,800 

Sterling Basin, Greenport Harbor, N. Y. (H. Doc.' 874, 61st Cong., 2d sess.). 

Hudson River at Ossining, N. Y. (H. Doc. 350, 63d Cong., 2d sess.). 

22', 500 
79,700 
72,000 

Matawan Creek, N. J. (H. Doc. 43, 63d Cong., 1st sess.). 

Shoal Harbor and Compton Creek; N. J. (Hf Doc. 40, 63d Cong., 1st sess.). 

56; 800 
3,600 

Chester River, Pa. (H. Doc. 677, 62d Cong., 2d sess.)... 

3', 600 

Appoquinimink River, Del. (H. Doc. 149, 63d Cong., 1st sess.). 

n;ooo 

11,000 

Murderkill River Del/(H. Doc. 1058, 62d Cong., 3d sess.). 

3i; 468 
70,400 
3,000 

12', 000 
35,200 

Mispillion River, Del. (H. Doc. 678, 62d Cong., 2d sess.). 

Breton Bay, Md. (H. Doc. 127, 63d Cong., 1st sess.). 

3 ; 000 

11,800 

Herring Bay and Rockhole Creek, Md. (H. Doc. 161, 63d Cong., and Com. 
Doc. 11). 

11,800 

Tred Avon River (North and South Forks), Md. (H. Doc. 27, 63d Cong., 1st 
sess.). 

19,600 

19,600 
4,500 

Nansemond River, Va (H. Doc. 1246, 62d Cong., 3d sess.). 

4,500 

Hampton Creek, Va. (H. Doc. 29, 63d Cong., 1st sess.). 

27,000 

27,000 
16,434 
11,250 

Tangier Channel, Va. (H. Doc. 107, 63d Cong., 1st sess.). 

16, 434 

Oyster Channel Va. fH Doc. 209, 63d Cone., 1st sess.). 

11,250 

Locklies Creek Va (H Doc. 612, 63d Cong., 2d sess.). 

4,100 

4,100 

Oeenqnan Creek Va, fH Doc. 661, 63d Cong., 2d sess.). 

43,000 
31,800 

21,500 

Senppernnno r River N O (TT Doe. 1196, 62d Con?., 3d sess.).. 

31,800 

Northeast Cape Fear River, N C fH. Doc. 1356, 62d Cong.. 3d sess.). 

25,375 

25; 375 
6,000 
5,400 

Bennett River N C fH Doc 1362, 62d Cong., 3d sess.). 

o;ooo 

5,400 

Deep Creek N C fTT Doe. 1383, 62d Con?., 3d sess.). 

Newbegun Creek, N. C. fH. Doc. 24, 63d Cong., 1st sess.). 

Lumber River, N. C. and S. C. (H. Doc. 138, 63d Cong., 1st sess.). 

Jeremy Creek, S. C. (H. Doc. 660, 63d Cong., 2d sess.). 

Sqntee River S C fH Doe 603, 63d Con?., 2d sess.). 

5,000 
2, COO 
5,000 
10,000 

1 20, COO 

5,000 
2,000 
5,000 
10,000 

20,000 

Waterway, MeClellanville to Winyah Bay, S. C. (H. Doc. 178, 63d Cong., 1st 

Waterway, Orangeburg to Charleston, S. C. (H. Doc. 606, 63d Cong., 2d sess.)... 
Oenerals Gnf Oq (TT TTor* 681 ) 63d Cong. ; 2d sess.). 

35,0C0 
1,000 

35,000 

1,C00 

Back River Ca (H Doe 1391 6?d Con?., 3d sess.). 

5,000 

5,0C0 

Kissimmee Rivpr F 1 q f (TT T)or* 137, 63d Coup. ; 1st sess.)... 

47,000 

47,000 

Caloosahatchee River Fla (TT Dor* 137, 63d ( one., 1st sess.}. 

25,000 

25,000 
10,000 
22,000 
10,700 


10,000 
22,000 

Anelote River Fla (IT Tine 18 63d Cong., 1st sess.). 


10,700 

Deen Creek Fla’ fH Doc 699 63d Cong . 2d sess.). 

9,000 

32,000 

9,000 

Lake Ponchartrain Pa (TT Loo 176, 63d Cong., 1st sess.). 

32 ; 000 

Vermillion River, La., and channel to waterway (H. Doc. 1336, 62d Cong., 3d 

Colorado River, Tex. (Com. Doc. 3, 63d Cong., 1st sess.). 

37,500 

25,000 

37,500 

25,000 


i Funds on hand for the waterway between Charleston and McClellanville, a section of the waterway 
from Charleston to Winyah Bay, made available for the section of this waterway from McClellanville to 
Winyah Bay. 
























































8 


RIVERS AND HARBORS APPROPRIATION BILL. 


Projects calling for an expenditure of less than $ 100,000 —Continued. 



Total cost. 

Initial ap¬ 
propriation. 

Huron Harbor, Ohio (H. Doc. 5, 63d Cong. 1st sess.). 

$34,500 

3,400 
33,000 
2,750 
42,000 
38,170 

6.500 
i 10,000 

7.500 

80,000 

2 6,000 
1,800 

$34,500 

3,400 
33,000 
2,750 
48,600 
38,170 

6.500 
6,000 

7.500 

80,000 

6,000 

1,800 

Menominee River and Harbor, Mich, and Wis. (H. Doc. 228, 63d Cong., 1st 
sess.). 

Sturgeon Bay and Lake Michigan Ship Canal (H. Doc. 1382,62d Cong., 3d sess.).. 
Baudette River and Harbor, Minn (H. Doc. i09, 63d Cong., 1st sess.). 

Michigan City Harbor, Ind. (H. Doc. 659,63d Cong., 2d sess.). 

Calumet Harbor, Ill. (H. Doc. 237 , 63d Cong., 1st sess.). 

Gasconade River, Mo. (H. Doc. 190, 63d Cong., 1st sess.). 

Kansas River, Kans. (H. Doc. 584, 03d Cong., 2d sess.). 

Petaluma Creek, Cal. (H. Doc. 118, 63d Cong.' 1st sess.). 

Falls of the Willamette River at Oregon City, Oreg. (H. Doc. 1060, 62d Cong., 
3d sess.). 

Columbia River at Cathlamet, Wash. (H. Doc. 120, 63d Cong., 1st sess.). 

Skamokawa River, Wash. (H. Doc. Ill, 63d Cong., 1st sess.). 1. 


1,194,247 

1,075,979 


1 There is an available balance of $4,000 for Kansas River. 

2 Made a part of the general project for the improvement of Columbia River, from which funds are to be 
allotted. 


Projects calling for an expenditure of $100,000 and upward. 


Beverly Harbor, Mass. (H. Doc. 220,63d Cong., 1st sess., and R. and H. Com. Doc. 

8,63d Cong.,2d sess.). 

New London Harbor, Conn. (H. Doc. 613, 63d Cong., 2d sess.). 

Upper Bay, New York Harbor, N. Y. (H. Doc.518,63d Cong.,2d sess.). 

East River and Hell Gate, N. Y. (H. Doc. 188,63d Cong., 1st sess.). 

Tonawanda and North Tonawanda Harbor, N. Y. (H. Doc. 658, 63d Cong., 2d 

SGSS.) 

Raritan River, N. j."(H. Doc. 1341,62d Cong.,3d sess.). 

Shrewsbury River, N. J. (H. Doc. 1296,62d Cong.,3d sess.). 

Chesapeake & Delaware Canal (H. Doc. 196,63d Cong., 1st sess.,and H. Doc.391, 

62d Cong.,2d sess.). 

Curtis Bay, Baltimore Harbor, Md. (H. Doc. 7,63d Cong., 1st sess.). 

Norfolk Harbor, Va. (H. Doc. 605,63d Cong., 2d sess.). 

Waterway, Charleston, S. C., to Savannah, Ga. (H. Doc. 627, 63d Cong., 2d sess.). 

Savannah Harbor, Ga. (H. Doc. 290,63d Cong., 1st sess.). 

Oklawaha River, Fla. (H. Doc.514,63d Cong.,2d sess.). 

Waterway, St. George Sound, Fla., to the Rio Grande (H. Doc. 610,63d Cong., 2d 

sess.). 

Bayou Teche, La. (H. Doc. 1329,62d Cong.,3d sess.). 

Cumberland River, above Nashville,Tenn. (Com. Doc. 10,63d Cong.,2d sess.)_ 

Fairport Harbor, Ohio (H. Doc. 206,63d Cong., 1st sess.). 

Richmond Harbor,Cal. (H. Doc.515,63d Corig.,2d sess.). 

Sacramento and Feather Rivers, Cal. (R. and H. Com. Doc. 5, 63d Cong., 1st sess.). 
Willapa Harbor, Wash. (H. Doc. 706,63d Cong.,2d sess.). 

Total... 


Total cost. 

Initial 

appropria¬ 

tion. 

$123,000 

$61,500 

330,000 

170,000 

830,000 

250,000 

13,400,000 

500,000 

i 252,000 

i 252,000 

784,000 

250,000 

295,000 

100,000 

2 6, 785,710 

1,300,000 

123,700 

61,850 

1,114,000 

270,000 

100,000 

50,000 

154,000 

154,000 

733,000 

175,000 

780,593 

3 330,000 

315,000 

100,000 

4,500,000 

340,000 

238,500 

158,000 

428,000 

100,000 

5,860,000 

200,000 

347,950 

100,000 

37,494,453 

4,922,350 


1 This project made a part of the existing project for Black Rock Harbor and Channel, N. Y., and the un¬ 
expended balances of appropriations heretofore made or authorized for Black Rock Harbor and Channel 
and for Tonawanda Harbor and Niagara River, ample to finish, made available for the consolidated project. 

2 On basis of $1,300,000 as purchase price of existing Chesapeake & Delaware Canal. 

3 Only sections 5, 7, and 12 adopted. 


NEW PROJECTS WITH CONDITIONS. 

Beverly Harbor, Mass. (Com. Doc. 8, 63d Cong., 2d sess., and H. Doc. 220, 63d Cong., 
1st sess.): Provided suitable bulkheading inclosing a sufficient area at and to the 
eastward of Tucks Point be furnished by the State or municipalities to afford a dump¬ 
ing place for about one-third of the dredged spoil, said bulkhead to extend from the foot 
of Maple Avenue about one thousand one hundred feet parallel to and about seventy- 
five feet inside of the northern limit of the proposed new channel, as shown on the 
accompanying survey report; that the United States be permitted to dump behind 
said bulkhead such material as can be economically excavated with a pump dredge; 
that dredged spoil which can not economically be pumped ashore directly by the Unifed 

























































RIVERS AND HARBORS APPROPRIATION BILL. 


9 


States shall be dumped at sea by the United States or rehandled ashore behind such 
bulkhead at the expense of the State or city, at their option; that the United States 
shall have the right to determine the methods of excavation to be adopted; that all 
lands formed by the deposit of spoil behind the bulkhead shall be pledged by the State 
or municipality as a permanent site for public wharfs, open to all water carriers on 
equal terms, and that prior to the initiation of Federal work a cash deposit of $50,000 
be made to the credit of the Secretary of War, to be applied to dredging the 24-foot 
channel along the northern route. 

New London Harbor, Conn. (H. Doc. 613, 63d Cong., 2d sess.): That assurance, 
satisfactory to the Secretary of War, be given that the State wall carry out its project 
of terminal development practically as now proposed and described in the report of 
the district officer. 

Murderkill River, Del. (H. Doc. 1058, 62d Cong., 3d sess.): Donation of the necessary 
land for the improvement. 

Mispillion River, Del. (H. Doc. 678, 62d Cong., 3d sess.): That the necessary light 
of way be provided free of cost to the United States. 

B eton Bay, Md. (H. Doc. 127, 63d Cong., 1st sess.): That assu:ance be given, 
satisfactory to the Secretary of War, that local inte ests will construct a new, sub¬ 
stantial wha f and wa ehouse on the site of the old county landing, open to all on equal 
and equitable terms, and that the structures will be maintained in good condition. 

Herring Bay and Rqckhole Creek, Md. (Com. Doc. 11, 63d Cong., 2d sess.): That 
assurance be given, satisfactory to the Secretary of War, that local interests will build, 
at their own expense, a suitable wharf in the vicinity of the basin, to be constructed 
with a public road leading thereto. 

North and South Forks of Tied Avon River, Md. (H. Doc. 27, 63d Cong., 1st sess.): 
That the town of Easton previously establishes, adjacent to the pioposed improve¬ 
ment, public terminal facilities to be premanently open to ail vessels on equal terms 
and connected with the city by proper public highways. 

Hampton Creek, Va. (H. Doc. 29, 63d Cong., 1st sess.): That interested parties first 
construct a suitable mooring wharf for the free use of all vessels in accordance with 
plans to be approved by the Secretary of War. 

Oyster Channel, Va. (H. Doc. 209, 63d Cong., 1st sess.): That local interests con¬ 
tribute one-half of the cost of the original work, $11,250, prior to the commencement 
of operations by the United States. 

Locklies Creek, Va. (H. Doc. 612, 63d Cong., 2d sess.): That local interests grant 
the right to deposit the dredged material in the adjacent waters not less than 500 nor 
more than 1,000 feet from the cut to be made. 

Northeast Cape Fear River, N. C. (H. Doc. 1356, 62d Cong., 3d sess.): That local or 
other interests contribute one-half the cost of first construction. 

Bennett River, N. C. (H. Doc. 1362, 62d Cong., 3d sess.): That all land necessary 
to be removed in excavating the turning basin and cutting-off points be donated with¬ 
out expense to the Government. 

Deep Creek, N. C. (H. Doc. 1383, 62d Cong., 3d sess.): That no work be done until 
the Secretary of War is satisfied that local interests will supply a public wharf of ade¬ 
quate facilities at First Landing, one of the termini of the work. 

Jeremy Creek, S. C. (H. Doc. 880, 63d Cong., 2d sess.): That local interests shall 
contribute $5,000 to the work, and provide a public wharf which, in the opinion of 
the Secretary of War, will be suitable for the accommodation of the boats running to 
McClellan ville. 

Savannah Harbor, Ga. (H. Doc. 290, 63d Cong., 1st sess.): That the city of Savannah 
shall donate free of cost to the United States all land necessary for the basin to be con¬ 
structed and a reasonable space for suitable dock and warehouse purposes for the 
Engineer Department. 

Oklawaha River, Fla. (H. Doc. 514, 63d Cong., 2d sess.): That any land necessary 
for the contraction of the waterway be given to the United States without charge; 
that interested property owners agree to protect the United States against claims for 
damages on account of any land that may be flooded; that local interests give satis¬ 
factory assurance that they will provide for the use of the public suitable wharf and 
terminal facilities in the vicinity of Leesburg; and that they will establish and operate 
a boat line over this waterway which will be competitive with the railroads, and not 
subject to control or purchase by railroad and other corporate interests. 

Crystal River, Fla. (Com. Doc. 4, 63d Cong., 1st sess.): That the town of Crystal 
River or other local parties interested shall expend the sum of $10,000 in a public 
wharf and other public terminal developments opposite the proposed turning basin. 

Waterway-St. George Sound to Rio Grande (H. Doc. 610, 63a Cong., 2d sess.): That 
communities interested furnish without cost to the United States the right of way 
required. 


10 


RIVERS AND HARBORS APPROPRIATION BILL. 


Vermillion River, La., and Channel to Waterway (H. Doc. 1336, 62d Cong., 3d sess.): 
That the necessary right of way, 300 feet wide, be donated to the United States free 
of cost. 

Colorado River, Tex. (Com. Doc. 3, 63d Cong., 1st sess.): That the improvement be 
not undertaken until after the construction of a railroad spur to some point at or near 
Mile 21, and a public wharf on each side of the river at this place, with public roads 
leading thereto, and suitable bridge draws in the bridges below Mile 21, satisfactory 
to the Chief of Engineers and the Secretary of War, all free of expense to the United 
States. 

Cumberland River above Nashville, Tenn. (Com. Doc. 10, 63d Cong., 2d sess.): 
That the States, counties, or other local agencies bind themselves to protect the United 
States against any claims for damages due to overflow. 

Kansas River, Kans. (H. Doc. 584, 63d Cong., 2d sess.): That local or other interests 
contribute all except $10,000 of the money necessary for this improvement. 

Richmond Harbor, Cal. (H. Doc. 515, 63d Cong., 2d sess.): That local interests con¬ 
tribute one-half the cost of the work, and that the city of Richmond construct all 
bulkheads necessary to retain the dredged material and convey to the United States 
free of cost title to such lands required in the execution of the project as the Secretary 
of War may decide should be owned by the General Government. 


War Department, 

Office of the Chief of Engineers, 

Washington , February 12 , 1914. 

Hon. S. M. Sparkman, 

Chairman Committee on Filers and Harbors , 

House of Representatives. 

Sir: I have the honor to submit herewith a draft of a proposed item for insertion 
in the pending river and harbor bill, relative to regulations governing boats passing 
the bridges over the Potomac River at Washington, D. C., The desirability of this 
new legislation is more fully set forth in the accompanying note of explanation. 

Very respectfully, 

Edw. Burr, 

Colonel, Corps of Engineers, Acting Chief of Engineers. 

Note. —By an act approved March 4, 1909, Congress required that all tugboats 
plying on the Potomac River through the new highway and railway bridges should 
have their smoke stacks equipped with devices for lowering to the level of the pilot 
houses. This law was intended to minimize the opening of the draws of these bridges, 
and has served this useful purpose, all tugboat owners having complied with it. 
Experience has shown that the law should be extended to apply to the numerous 
pleasure craft plying on the river. Many of this kind of craft are smaller than tugboats, 
and it seems unreasonable to require the bridges to be opened for such small boats 
when they can readily equip their vertical projections with lowering devices. Cer¬ 
tainly if tugboats used for business purposes are required to lower their smokestacks, 
there would seem to be good reason for requiring boats used solely for pleasure purposes 
to do likewise. 

The suggested amendment is intended to accomplish this. 


o 


































. 

4 































































































































































































63d Congress .V 
2d Session / 


HOUSE OF .REPRESENTATIVES 


j Report 300 
\ Part 2 


FLOODS AND LEVEES 

OF THE 

MISSISSIPPI RIVER 


SUPPLEMENTAL REPORT 

SUBMITTED BY 

MR. HUMPHREYS 

OF MISSISSIPPI 
[To accompany H. R. 13811] 

A BILL 

MAKING APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE CONSTRUCTION, 
REPAIR. AND PRESERVATION OF CERTAIN PUB- 
LIC WORKS ON RIVERS AND HARBORS, 

AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES 


February 24, 1914.— Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the 
state of the Union and ordered to be printed 

9 


WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 
1914 

(l , 






















63d Congress 1 
2d Session / 


HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 


f Report 300 
\ Part 2 


FLOODS AND LEVEES 

OF THE 

MISSISSIPPI RIVER 


SUPPLEMENTAL REPORT 

SUBMITTED BY 

MR. HUMPHREYS 

OF MISSISSIPPI 
[To accompany H. R. 13811] 

A BILL 

MAKING APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE CONSTRUCTION. 
REPAIR. AND PRESERVATION OF CERTAIN PUB¬ 
LIC WORKS ON RIVERS AND HARBORS. 

AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES 


FEBRUARY 24, 1914. — Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the 
state of the Union and ordered to be printed 


WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 
1914 

_ (Lr^j 2 - _ 









“ Shall it lie unproductive in the public vaults ? Shall the revenue 
be reduced ? Or shall it not rather be appropriated to the improve¬ 
ments of roads, canals, rivers, education, and other great foundations 
of prosperity and union under the powers which Congress may 
already possess or such amendment of the Constitution as may be 
approved by the States.” 

Thomas Jefferson. 


u 


0, OF D. 
fclAfc 7 1914 






CONTENTS 


Chapter I : 

Indorsements of statesmen, past and present_ 

John Tyler_ 

Thos. H. Benton_ 

John C. Calhoun_ 

Henry Clay_ 

Abraham Lincoln_ 

Andrew Johnson_ 

James A. Garfield_ 

Chester A. Arthur_ 

Theodore Roosevelt_ 

William H. Taft_ 

William J. Bryan_ 

Woodrow Wilson_ 

Chapter II: 

History of the levee system—Egypt, Assyria, Holland 

Levee system of the Mississippi River_ 

Swamp and overflow land act_ 

Disaster of the war between the States_ 

Great flood of 1874_ 

Collapse of the local levee system_ 

Chapter III: 

The long fight for Federal aid- 

First official report on the Mississippi- 

Memphis convention of 1845_ 

Chicago convention of 1847-- 

Humphreys and Abbot’s report- 

Warren Commission and its report- 

The Mississippi River Commission- 

First report of the Mississippi River Commission 
Chapter IV: 

Levees under the Mississippi -River Commission- 

Burrows Commission and its regort T - 

Do levees cause the river bed'to fill A:- 

Hearings of 1890; change in language of the bills. 

Flood of 1897 and the Nelson report- 

Nelson committee’s report- 

First flood passes without a crevasse- 

Flood of 1903 and its lessons- 

Industrial development in the deltas- 

Nine years of peace and then the deluge- 

Development of drainage area- 

Chapter V: 

Should the Federal Government build the levees- 

Question of flood control- 

Not a question of reclamation- 

Local contributions- 

Unearned increment- 

Magnitude of the area protected- 

“ Bender ” cotton- 

Balance of trade- 

Shall the deltas revert to the jungle- 

Burden borne by the poor people- 


Page. 

9 

9 

9 

9 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

11 

11 

11 

12 

13 

15 

15 

17 

18 
18 

20 

21 

21 

23 

23 

26 

27 

28 

31 

33 

36 

38 

39 

40 

41 

41 

42 

43 

44 

47 

47 

48 

49 

50 

51 

52 

52 

53 

54 


HI 



















































IV 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter VI: 

The question of interstate commerce_ 56 

Levees as aid to navigation_ 56 

Sand bars—Cause and effect_ 58 

Caving banks_ 59 

Bank revetment_ 60 

Fourteen feet through the valley_ 61 

The hydraulic dredge and its limitations_ 62 

Permanency of revetment work_ 63 

River transportation and railroad rates_ 64 

Prospective growth of river traffic_ 66 

Flood control as aid to interstate intercourse_ 68 

Chapter VII: 

The Mississippi River and the Panama Canal_ 70 

Chapter VIII: 

The constitutional questions involved__ 76 

Brief of Gen. T. C. Catchings_ 77 

Argument of Gov. N. C. Blanchard_ 89 

Appendices. 

Appendix A: 

Memphis address of Col. C. McD. Townsend—Scientific American 

editorial_ 102 

Appendix B: 

St. Louis address of Col. C. McD. Townsend_ 115 

Appendix C: 

Hearings, 1910—Statement of Judge R. S. Taylor_ 125 

Appendix D: 

Hearings, 1910—Statements of Mr. S. Waters Fox and Mr. H. G. 

Wilson_ 148 

Appendix E: 

Hearings, 1890—Statements of Gen. Cyrus B. Comstock, Col. Charles 
H. Suter, Capt. Smith S. Leach, and Capt. Dan C. Kingman— 

Discussion of levees by American Society Civil Engineers, 1903_ 172 

Appendix F: 

Hearings, 1904—Statements of John M. Parker, Chas. S. Fairchild, 

A. S. Caldwell, LeRoy Percy, Chas. F. Huhlien, Alex G. Cochran, 

and O. N. Killough_ 241 

Appendix G: 

Hearings, 1913—Statements of Gen. T. C. Catchings, Gen. Luke E. 
Wright, Mr. B. F. Bush, Mr. R. B. Oliver, Judge E. A. McCulloch, 

Mr. William P. Ross, Hon. LeRoy Percy, Col. C. McD. Townsend-_ 274 






















FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi, from the Committee on Rivers and 
Harbors, submitted the following 

SUPPLEMENTAL REPORT. 

[To accompany EL R. 13811.] 

The item in the bill as reported by the committee providing for 
continuing the improvement of the lower Mississippi River is an 
increase over the amounts heretofore appropriated. 

It provides $7,000,000 for the ensuing fiscal year—the largest single 
appropriation heretofore made for this project was $6,000,000, which 
was the amount carried in the bills of 1912 and 1913. The project 
is in no sense a new one. It was, in fact, adopted by Congress March 
3, 1881, and provided for the improvement of the Mississippi River 
“ in such manner as will improve and give ease and safety to the 
navigation thereof, prevent destructive floods, promote and facilitate 
commerce, trade, and the postal service.” 

The following table shows the appropriations which have been 
made heretofore for the improvement of the river since the creation 
of the Mississippi River Commission in 1879. The amounts appro¬ 
priated theretofore were inconsiderable and devoted to snagging 
operations. 

Consolidated Statement of all Appropriations Expended under the Missis¬ 
sippi River Commission, to June 30, 1912. 

Appropriation for improving Mississippi River. 


Act of June 28, 1879 (organic)_ $175, 000.00 

Act of June 16, 1880 (sundry civil)- 150,000.00 

Act of Mar. 3, 1881 (river and harbor)- 1,000,000.00 

Act of Mar. 3, 1881 (sundry civil)- 150,000.00 

Act of Aug. 2, 1882 (river and harbor)- 4,123, 000. 00 

Act of Aug. 7, 1882 (sundry civil)- 150,000.00 

Act of Mar. 3, 1883 (sundry civil)- 150,000.00 

Act of Jan. 19, 1884_ 1,000,000.00 

Act of July 5, 1884 (river and harbor)- 75, 000. OO 

Act of July 5, 1884 (river and harbor), less $5,000 transferred to 

snag-boat service--- 2, 065, 000. 00 

Act of July 7, 1884 (sundry civil)- 75,000.00 

Act of Aug. 5, 1886 (river and harbor), less $5,942.60 for ex¬ 
penses, office Chief of Engineers- 1, 994, 057. 40 

Act of Aug. 5, 1886 (river and harbor), less $47.30 for expenses. 

office Chief of Engineers- 29, 952. 70 

Act of Aug. 11, 1888 (river and harbor), less $4,859 for expenses, 

office Chief of Engineers- 2, S40,141. 00 

Act of Aug. 11, 1888 (river and harbor)- 75,000.00 

Act of Oct. 2, 1888 (sundry civil)- 35, 000. 00 


1 



















9 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


Act of Oct. 19, 1888 (deficiency), less $4,214.39 reverted to the 


Treasury_ $20, 785. 61 

Act of Sept. 19, 1890 (river and harbor)_ 3, 200, 000. 00 

Act of Sept. 30, 1890 (deficiency)_ 5, 625. 00 

Act of Mar. 3, 1891 (deficiency)_ 1,950.00 

Joint resolution approved Mar. 3, 1891 (Public, No. 19)_ 1,000,000.00 

Act of July 13, 1892 (river and harbor)_ 2, 470, 000. 00 

Act of July 28, 1892 (deficiency)_ 44.80 

Act of Mar. 3, 1893 (sundry civil)_:_ 2,665,000.00 

Act of Aug. 18, 1894 (river and harbor)_ 485, 000. 00 

Act of Aug. 18, 1894 (sundry civil)_ 2,665,000.00 

Act of Mar. 2, 1895 (sundry civil)__ 2, 665, 000. 00 

Act of June 3, 1896 (river and harbor ) _ _ _ 909.000.00 

Joint resolution approved Mar. 31, 1897 (Public, No. 6)_ 250,000. 00 

Act of June 4, 1897 (sundry civil)_ 2, 933, 333. 00 

Act of July 19, 1897 (deficiency)_ 625,000.00 

Act of July 1, 1898 (sundry civil)_ 1,983,333.00 

Act of Mar. 3, 1899 (sundry civil)_ 2,583,333.00 

Act of Mar. 3, 1899 (river and harbor)_*_ 185, 000. 00 

Act of June 6. 1900 (sundry civil), less $5,000 for expenses, 

office Chief of Engineers_ 2, 245, 000. 00 

Act of June 13, 1902 (river and harbor)__ 2, 200, 000. 00 

Act of Mar. 3, 1903 (sundry civil)_ 2, 000, 000. 00 

Act of Apr. 28, 1904 (sundry civil)_ 2,000,000.00 

Act of Mar. 3, 1905 (river and harbor)_ 1,000,000.00 

Act of Mar. 3, 1905 (sundry civil)_ 2,000,000.00 

Act of June 30, 1906 (sundry civil)_ 2,000,000.00 

Act of Mar. 2, 1907* (river and harbor)_ 3,000,000.00 

Act of May 27, 1908 (sundry civil)____ 2, 000, 000. 00 

Act of Mar. 4, 1909 (sundry civil)___ 2, 000, 000. 00 

Act of June 25, 1910 (sundry civil)_1_ 2,000,000.00 

Act of June 25, 1910 (river and harbor)_ 2, 000, 000. 00 

Act of Feb. 27, 1911 (river and harbor)_ 3, 000, 000. 00 


Total specific appropriations_ 66,179, 555. 51 


EXPENDED. 


Location and object. 

To Jime 30, 

1911. 

During year 
ending 

June 30, 1912. 

Total. 

Mississippi River Commission. 

*930,352.38 

2,633,478.23 

25,735,637.83 

14,046,318.81 
5,649,807.18 
100,000. 00 
4,057,716. 92 

7,752,230.20 
582,980.98 
737,632. 53 

$38,364.67 
79,898. 78 
482,870.22 

1,078,554.53 
334.722.03 

$968,717.05 
2,713,377.01 
26,218,508.05 

15,124,873.34 
5,984.529.21 
100,000.00 
4,636,951.92 

8.117.151.39 
582.980. 98 
737,632.53 

Surveys, gauges, and observations.. 

Levees. ’ . 

Revetment and contraction works, permanent channel 
improvements and protection. 

Dredges and dredging.. 

Experimental dikes. 

Plant and miscellaneous. 

579.235.00 

364,921.19 

Imnroving harbors and tributaries except Vicksburg 
Harbor. 

Improving Vicksburg Harbor. 

Works above Cairo... . 


Total expended. 


62,226,156. 06 

2,958.566. 42 

65,184.721.48 
1.327,102.10 
17,000.00 

Balance unexpended June 30, 1912. 

Unallotted. 



Total appropriated, etc. 





66,528,823.66 





Of the total appropriations during the past 35 years, $31,500,000, 
in round numbers, have been expended in levee construction, $18,000,- 
000 in bank revetment, and the balance in other works of channel im¬ 
provement, surveys, administration, etc. 

It has not been possible to ascertain with exactness the amount local 
interests have expended in levee construction. It is variously esti¬ 
mated at from $65,000,000 to $70,000,000. Since the reorganization 



































































FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


3 


of the levee districts which followed the creation of the Mississippi 
River Commission the figures are more readily obtainable, but for 
the period prior thereto the amount can only be estimated. 

Since the three disastrous floods which occurred during the two 
years of 1912 and 1913, and which so shocked the national conscience 
by their frightful toll of life and property, the demand has come 
from every section of the country that Congress proceed in a busi¬ 
nesslike fashion and hurry to completion this project, which has been 
permitted to lag superfluous upon the stage of legislative endeavor 
for the past 35 years. 

In response to this well-nigh unanimous public sentiment, all three 
of the responsible political parties in 1912 incorporated planks in 
their respective platforms recognizing the national character of these 
disasters and committed their candidates to the speedy solution of 
the problem. The presidential nominees all specifically subscribed 
to these declarations, and. so far as preelection promises and party 
pledges could be made binding, all political parties represented in 
Congress to-day were committed. 

Since the new Congress so elected was convened several bills have 
been introduced, all having the control Qf these floods as their com¬ 
mon purpose. Many methods are suggested in these measures to 
effect the consummation sought by all, all of which have been con¬ 
sidered by the Engineer Corps of the Army in the long period of 
years during which the Mississippi River has been under their di¬ 
recting observation. Nothing new has been suggested, nothing which 
has not been presented and elaborated before the committees of this 
House many times before. 

It is the duty of the statesman to consider and determine whether 
the control of these floods shall be undertaken, and if so, then to pro¬ 
vide by appropriate legislation the requisite authority and funds. 
It is the duty of the engineer to consider and determine the means 
by which this legislative will can best be executed. 

Congress has wisely in the past always referred such matters to 
the Engineer Corps of the Army, and has, perhaps, universally fol¬ 
lowed their advice in all technically engineering problems. 

Many plans have been suggested for the prevention of floods on the 
lower Mississippi—outlets, reservoirs, cut-offs, diversion of tribu¬ 
taries, and levees. All of these plans have been investigated thor¬ 
oughly by the Engineer Corps of the Army, and all have been dis¬ 
carded as inapplicable with the exception of the levee system, which 
has been recommended as the proper method. Many commissions 
hav been appointed by Congress to investigate the subject—Bernard 
and Totten, in 1822; Chas. Ellet,jr.,in 1852; Humphreys and Abbott, 
in 1861; the Warren Commission, in 1875; the Burrows Committee, in 
1883; the Nelson Committee, in 1898. In addition to these the Mis¬ 
sissippi River .Commission was created in 1879 and has continuously 
since then studied the question, and their annual reports fill many 
volumes. All of these commissions investigating the various methods 
proposed have agreed that the best and only practical method for 
flood control is the levee system. After the floods of 1913 President 
Wilson requested the Mississippi River Commission to make a fur¬ 
ther report, and in compliance therewith Col. C. McD. Townsend, 
president of the commission, on the 16th of May, 1913, submitted the 
following, which is the last report on the subject; 


4 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


Mississippi River Commission, 

Office of the President, 

St. Louis , Mo ., May 16 , 1913. 
From: The president Mississippi River Commission. 

To: The Chief of Engineers United States Army. 

Subject: Mississippi River floods. 

1. In compliance with instructions contained in your letter of 
April 29, 1913, and on behalf of the Mississippi River Commission, 
I submit the following report upon: 

(a) How best to prevent the occurrence of destructive floods in the 
Mississippi River Basin. 

( b) How to prevent or reduce to a minimum the damages which 
might be caused by such floods. 

2. Many of the questions involved have been discussed in great de¬ 
tail by the commission in its annual reports, but in accordance with 
your verbal directions this report is made as brief and concise as 
practicable, and there are appended two papers I have recently pre¬ 
pared and which, in general, accord with the views of the com¬ 
mission. Reference is made to these appendixes for a more ex¬ 
tended discussion of the subject matter. 

3. The floods of the Mississippi River Basin are caused by heavy 
storms originating in the Gulf of Mexico. Like cyclones, earthquakes, 
and volcanic eruptions, they are acts of God, which man can not 
prevent; and the rainfall during these storms is so excessive that the 
works of man have little effect in increasing or diminishing the vol¬ 
ume of the flow resulting therefrom. 

4. Numerous methods to prevent or reduce to a minimum the dam¬ 
ages caused by such floods have been suggested: 

(1) Reforestation. —While forests may have some influence on a 
river during midstages they pfoduce little effect either during ex¬ 
treme floods or extreme low water. It takes too long a time for trees 
to grow and the humus to form under them for reforestation to be a 
practical solution of flood prevention in the Mississippi Basin. It 
would also require the abandonment of too much land needed for 
agricultural purposes. 

(2) Reservoirs.— In a mountainous country, where short, high 
dams can create reservoirs of great depth and volume, or in a com¬ 
paratively level country, where low dams can form lakes of large 
area, it may be practicable to control floods by means of reservoirs. 
There is but a comparatively small section of the Mississippi Basin 
that fulfills either of these conditions, and in such areas the rainfall 
is generally light. The rolling country, which forms the greater 
part of the Mississippi Valley and from which the water that pro¬ 
duces its floods is derived, can be protected from floods by reservoirs 
only by an enormous expenditure. 

(3) Cut-offs. —By cutting off the bends in a river, its length is 
diminished and slope increased. This would increase its discharge at 
a given height. This method of relief can not be applied to the Mis¬ 
sissippi River, as it would seriously injure its navigability during 
low water, and increase the caving of its banks, which is now excessive. 
While it would afford relief in the upper portions of the section of 
the river thus straightened, it would increase flood heights at the 
lower end, benefiting one locality at the expense of another. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


5 


(4) Outlets. —Outlets, while locally reducing flood heights, have 
only limited application as a means of relief from Mississippi floods. 
They can not be constructed above the mouth of Red River; their 
influence on flood heights extends only comparatively short distances 
above the locality where they are constructed; there is a tendency for 
the river to diminish its area of cross section below them; they have 
to be protected by levees of the same dimensions as the river itself; 
and there is danger, if the outlet is made sufficiently large to be of 
practicable value, that the river may abandon its present channel and 
adopt that of the outlet. (The subject is further discussed in Annual 
Reports of the Mississippi River Commission for 1881, 1882, 1884, 
1885, 1890-91, 1893, and 1912.) 

(5) Diversion of flood waters into channels parallel to the main 
river .—The maximum flood discharge of the Mississippi River ex¬ 
ceeds 2,000,000 second-feet, while it discharges about 1,000,000 second- 
feet at a bank-full stage. A side channel which would discharge the 
excess flood waters would therefore require an area of cross section 
equal to that of the river itself at bank-full stage, and with the same 
characteristics as to depth and velocity. 

(6) Levees .—Levees afford the only practicable means of prevent¬ 
ing the damages which might be caused by floods in the lower Mis¬ 
sissippi Valley. They have been successfully employed on European 
rivers, and are the only means of flood protection of large rivers that 
have been tested, or, if tested, have not failed. To restrain floods like 
those of 1912 and 1918, will require in the existing levee line about 
twice the yardage now in place. The estimated cost of such an en¬ 
largement is $57,000,000. Levee construction has not raised the bed 
of the Mississippi River. 

(7) Floods have not increased either in volume or frequency in 
recent years. 

C. McD. Townsend, 
Colonel , Corps of Engineers. 

The statement in section 7, above quoted, means simply that no 
more water has passed down the river in recent floods than formerly. 
The water, for reasons which appear fully hereafter (p. 44), gets 
into the river much more rapidly than heretofore and the volume of 
the flood at its crest is greater than formerly. 

From what has been said above it will be observed that Congress 
is not being asked to embark upon any new sea of Federal endeavor 
or expenditure, but simply, in the interest of all concerned, to com¬ 
plete a project already begun. 

It is a matter of disappointment to those most immediately con¬ 
cerned in the subject of flood control that the committee did not deem 
it advisable to authorize the continuous prosecution of the work pro¬ 
vided for in the bill under what is known as the “continuing con¬ 
tract.” 

If the policy of letting the work of levee construction to private 
contractors is to be continued, it would be possible to make contracts 
to run through several seasons at a price per cubic yard much less 
than is possible where the engineers have authority to contract for 
only one season. 

The cost of the equipment necessary to execute a large contract for 
levee construction is large, and many firms which would be willing 


6 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


to bid for the work if the contract covered several years will not do 
so under the limitations of a single-season contract. 

In his testimony which appears on page 92 of the hearings of 
December 3 and 4, 1913, Col. Townsend, president of the Mississippi 
River Commission, makes this very clear: 

Col. Townsend. If it was clearly understood by the contractors that there 
is a given sum, I do not care whether it is $4,000,000 or $6,000,000, or any sum 
that is going to be expended on levees for a series of years, we can get reason¬ 
able bids; but if we have irregular appropriations, and have one year $2,000,000 
and the next year $4,000,000 and then revert back to $2,000,000, we will not have 
the contractors on the work that are necessary to do the work, and there will 
be a tendency to higher prices from that cause, but with a regular appropria¬ 
tion of any fixed sum I think the contractors of the United States would adjust 
themselves to it; and if they did not. the Mississippi River Commission would 
employ means to obtain reasonable prices by doing it themselves. 

In a statement before the Senate Commerce Committee a few days 
ago (Jan. 29, 1914), Judge R. S. Taylor, for the past 33 years a mem¬ 
ber of the Mississippi River Commission, corroborated this opinion 
of Col. Townsend and estimated the saving that would thus be ac¬ 
complished at 20 per cent: 

The Chairman. If we had the continuing appropriation system instead of the 
yearly appropriation system, such as we have been having for the past years, 
how much, in your judgment, would it save in the reduction of the cost of 
construction ? 

Mr. Taylor. It is a very rough sort of an estimate, but I should say that a 
system of continuous appropriations in five-year periods would be worth to the 
work as a whole counting both revetments and levees, 20 per cent more than 
the same amount appropriated annually. 

The Chairman. Twenty per cent more in reduced cost of the work? 

Mr. Taylor, Yes: in the reduced cost of the work. 

This, of course, has no peculiar relation to the work of levee con¬ 
struction. The same argument can be made for the policy of con¬ 
tinuing contracts on all the large projects. There is this fact, how¬ 
ever, which appeals with especial force for such authorizations on the 
Mississippi River. The local levee boards are to be our allies in the 
work. So far they have contributed by far the larger portion of the 
funds expended. In order to keep pace in their future contributions 
they must issue bonds. An authorization by Congress for the con¬ 
tinuance of the work upon such a scale of appropriation as to indicate 
a fixed purpose to complete the work in a few years would give them 
that credit which comes only with confidence, an element which is 
sadly wanting now. Attention is earnestly directed to the taxing 
system now and for many years maintained along the lower reaches 
of the river, which is fully set out at page — o# this report. 

Any declaration that would probably, or could possibly, relieve 
these struggling people must surely call forcefully to our sympa¬ 
thetic judgment. 

On the other hand it is proposed, and with much reason it must 
be admitted, that the Mississippi River Commission do the work 
of levee construction by hired labor, as authorized, and not by con¬ 
tract. If the work can be done as economically by them as by the 
contractors, then the latter’s profits can be saved and expended in 
further construction work. This will require the Commission to 
invest much money in an equipment, which of itself, will be a 
guaranty that Congress has set its hand to the task in earnest and 
that it will be pushed to as early completion as economy may re- 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


7 


quire. If this be done this year the knowledge gained by that ex¬ 
perience will be with us to guide our judgment and shape our action 
when the next bill comes up for consideration next winter. 

The annual appropriations must, however, be large enough to 
make real economy possible. There is no other work of improve¬ 
ment where the element of time is so important. Just when the next 
flood will come is beyond human reckoning. Taking the past as the 
only safe lamp to light our path for the future, we must expect no 
long period of immunity. If another great flood should come before 
the lines are'high enough and strong enough to withstand it, the loss 
will be great indeed, and the ultimate cost will be largely in excess 
of the present estimates. 

This added cost is not absorbed entirely in the loss of levee line 
due to the crevasses which an incomjpleted system invites. Even 
Avhere the lines are held and the glad tidings are heralded to the world 
that the flood passed down the river between unbroken levees, the 
battle will have been won at heavy cost. The field will be strewn 
with wounded, though the list of the killed is blank. To illustrate: 
Col. Townsend told the committee that when the second flood of 1913 
came, the commission determined to hold the levees at all hazard. 
The result was gratifying—the line was breached in a very few 
places, but the campaign had cost a million dollars in works of a 
purely temporary character. 

The levee line all told on both banks of the river, is about 1,500 
miles long. The lower Yazoo district has a line only 190 miles 
long. The following letter from the Assistant Chief Engineer shows 
how that one district has expended more than a million dollars since 
1882 in these temporary works of emergency, 95 per cent of which 
was of no lasting or permanent value. The reasons for these ex¬ 
penditures are also stated and the character of the work explained : 

My Dear Mr. Humphreys : Senator Percy lias sent me your letter of December 
31. asking for some information relative to high-water expenses of past years. 
The expenses for high-water protection by this hoard since 1882, including that 
year, are as follows: 


1882 ___ $59,212.75 

1883 _ 19, 628. 96 

1884 _ 30, 921.11 

1890 _ 134,107. 50 

1891 _ 41, 668. 46 

1892 _ 35, 817. 92 

1893 _ 14, 759. 22 

1897 __ 96,170. 39 

1898 _ 96, 464. 96 

1903_ 122, 201. 32 

1907_ 32, 541. 95 

1912 _ 181, 005. 34 

1913 _ 232, 070. 72 


Total_ 1,098,570.60 


I have omitted years when the expenses were small. In addition to these 
amounts expended by the levee board, the Government has expended some 
moneys in most, or all, of these years for high-water protection in this levee 
district, but I can not ascertain the exact amount, as they are merged with 
engineering expenses in their report. 

As you well know, the greater part of the money expended during high water 
is entirely lost. I think it a very low estimate to say that at least 95 per cent 

















8 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


is entirely wasted. The reasons for this are that the levee board forces are not 
organized for high water, consequently we have to take on a great many inex¬ 
perienced men who do injudicious work. But by far the greatest reason for 
the loss is in consequence of the base of the levee and surrounding ground 
being so saturated with water that we can not use scrapers or other means 
ordinarily employed for handling dirt. The earth has to be handled in sacks, 
and the cost of the sacks alone to place a yard of dirt is between 60 and 70 
cents, this being three to four times as much as the placing of a yard of dirt 
would be during low-water time. Then, of course, owing to the ground and levee 
being wet the labor handling the sacks costs three or four times as much. And 
then, too, a great deal of the material that is put in the levees during the high 
water, being underlaid with brush and mixed with sacks which decay, has to 
be removed after the water goes down. So that an additional cost is thereby 
caused. 

Yours, very truly, 

Robt. Somerville, 
Assistant Chief Engineer. 

In the interest of economy, viewed from every angle and from the 
standpoint of all concerned, the work should be pushed to a speedy 
conclusion. 

The history of the levee system in other countries, and more in de¬ 
tail on the Mississippi River, together with some account of the long 
fight to enlist the aid of the Federal Government, is related in the 
following pages of this report. 

Numerous documents difficult to obtain, but which are invaluable 
to those who seek to understand the problem, are reproduced or cited 
to the end that all may proceed with knowledge who are charged with 
responsibility in the solution of the problem presented. 

For the further convenience of Members a table of contents is also 
printed. 


B. G. Humphreys. 


Chapter I. 


INDORSED BY STATESMEN FROM JEFFERSON TO WILSON, 
FROM HENRY CLAY TO BRYAN. 


There is nothing new in the contention that this is a great national 
question. In returning, without his approval, the omnibus rivers and 
harbors bill, President Tyler, in his message of June 11,1844, said: 

In sanctioning a bill of the same title with that returned, for the improve¬ 
ment of the Mississippi and its chief tributaries and certain harbors on the 
Lakes, if I bring myself apparently in conflict with any of the principles herein 
asserted it will arise on my part exclusively from the want of a just apprecia¬ 
tion of localities. The Mississippi occupies a footing altogether different from 
the rivers and water courses of the different States. No one State or any num¬ 
ber of States can exercise any other jurisdiction over it than for the punish¬ 
ment of crimes and the service of civil process. It belongs to no particular 
State or States, but of common right, by express reservation, to all the States. 
It is reserved as a great common highway for the commerce of the whole 
country. To have conceded to Louisiana or to any other State admitted as a 
new State to the Union the exclusive jurisdiction, and consequently the right 
to make improvements and to levy tolls on the segments of the river embraced 
within its Territorial limits, would have been to have disappointed the chief 
object in the purchase of Louisiana, which was to secure the free use of the 
Mississippi to all the people of the United States. Whether levies on com¬ 
merce were made by a foreign or domestic government would have been equally 
burdensome and objectionable. The United States, therefore, is charged with 
its improvement for the benefit of all, and the appropriation of governmental 
means to its improvement becomes indispensably necessary for the good of all. 

In a letter to the Chicago convention in 1847 Thomas H. Benton, 
one of the choice and master spirits of the age, thus apostrophized 
the Father of Waters: 

Wonderful river! connecting with seas by the head and by the mouth—stretch¬ 
ing its arms toward the Atlantic and the Pacific—lying in a valley, which is 
a valley from the Gulf of Mexico to Hudson’s Bay—drawing its first waters 
not from rugged mountains, but from a plateau of lakes in the center of the 
continent, and in communication with the sources of the St. Lawrence and the 
streams which take their course north to Hudson’s Bay—draining the largest 
extent of richest land—collecting the products of every clime, even the frigid, 
to bear the whole to a genial market in the Sunny South, and there to meet 
the products of the entire world. Such is the Mississippi! And who can calcu¬ 
late the aggregate of its advantages and the magnitude of its future commercial 
results. 

It will be shown that when he submitted his report, in response 
to the resolutions of the Memphis convention in 1845, Mr. Calhoun 
recommended to the Senate that an appropriation be made for the 
specific purpose of building embankments along the Mississippi 
River to protect the lands from overflow. The appropriation he 
recommended took the form of a donation of public land, but as 
these lands were to be sold and the proceeds of the sale devoted to 
this purpose instead of being covered into the Treasury, the dif¬ 
ference was one of procedure and not of principle. 



10 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


Henry Clay, always the champion of the valley and all its in¬ 
terests, in an impassioned speech in the Senate, said: 

With regard to the appropriations made for that portion of the country from 
which I come, the great Valley of the Mississippi, I will say that we are a per¬ 
severing people, a feeling people, and a contrasting people; and how long will 
it be before the people of this vast valley will rise en masse and tumble down 
your little hair-splitting distinctions about what is national, and demand what 
is just and fair on the part of this Government in relation to their great 
interests? The Mississippi, with all its tributaries, constitutes a part of a 
great system, and if the system be not national I should like to know one that 
is national. We are told that a little work, great in its value, one for which 
I shall vote with great pleasure, the breakwater in the little State of Delaware, 
is a great national work, while a work which has for its object the improvement 
of that vast system of rivers which constitutes the Valley of the Mississippi, 
which is to save millions and millions of property and many human lives, is 
not a work to be done, because not national 1 

Abraham Lincoln said: 

The driving of a pirate from the track of commerce in the broad ocean and 
the removing of a snag from its more narrow path in the Mississippi can not, I 
think, be distinguished in principle. Each is done to save life and property 
and to use the waterways for the purposes of promoting commerce. * * * 

The most general object I can think of would be the improvement of the 
Mississippi River and its tributaries. 

Andrew Johnson, in a message to Congress, specifically urged 
legislation for the preservation of the levees of the Mississippi River, 
declaring it to be a matter of national importance. I quote his 
words: 

As a subject upon which depends an immense amount of the production and 
commerce of the country, I recommend to Congress such legislation as may be 
necessary for the preservation of the levees of the Mississippi River. It *is a 
matter of national importance;, that early steps should be taken, not only to 
add to the efficiency of these barriers against destructive inundations, but for 
the removal of all obstructions to the free and safe navigation of that great 
channel of trade and commerce. 

Garfield in his letter accepting the nomination for the Presidency 
declared: 

The wisdom of Congress should be invoked to devise some plan by which 
that great river shall cease to be a terror to those who dwell upon its banks, 
and by which its shipping may safely carry the industrial products of 25.000.000 
of people. 

Hayes not only recommended the legislation but also approved the 
bill creating the Mississippi River Commission and signed the first 
lull appropriating money for levee construction. 

Arthur, in a massage to Congress, said: 

The constitutionality of a law making appropriations in aid of these objects 
can not be questioned. The safe and convenient navigation of the Mississippi is 
a matter of concern to all sections of the country; but to the Northwest, with 
its immense harvests, needing cheap transportation to the sea, and to the 
inhabitants of the river valley, whose lives and property depend upon the 
proper construction of the safeguards which protect them from the floods, it 
is of vital importance that a well-matured and comprehensive plan for im¬ 
provement should be put into operation with as little delay as possible. 

And then, recalling the fact that the heavy hand of the Federal 
taxgatherer had been laid upon these people at a time when they 
were least able to survive the blow and when they were grappling 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


11 


in a death struggle with the great floods of the later sixties, added 
these significant words: 

It may not be inopportune to mention that this Government has imposed and 
collected some $70,000,000 by a tax on cotton, in the production of which the 
population of the lower Mississippi is largely engaged, and it does not seem 
inequitable to return a portion of this tax to those who contributed it, par¬ 
ticularly as such action will also result in an important gain to the country 
at large, and especially so to the great rich States of the Northwest and the 
Mississippi Valley. 

Roosevelt said: 

We, the Nation, must build the levees, and build them better and more 
scientifically than ever before. 

Taft said: 

I am strongly in favor of expending the whole $50,000,000 to save that part 
of the country from floods in a reasonable time and to provide a proper levee 
system. 

The following editorial from the Commoner of April 11, 1913, is 
quoted for obvious reasons. I am aware that editorial expressions, as 
a rule, do not carry that same weight which is attached to expressions 
from those who are charged with the responsibility of government, 
such as above quoted; but we can not overlook the fact that the Com¬ 
moner is edited by Mr. Bryan, who was three times nominated by 
the Democratic Party as its candidate for the Presidency, and that 
at the time the following editorial was written he was Secretary of 
State in the Cabinet of Mr. Wilson. In view of these facts neither 
apology nor explanation is necessary for including this editorial 
along with the expressions which have been quoted from other great 
men in the past history of the country: 

For years the people of the lower Mississippi and those living at intersections 
of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers have been subjected to losses and great 
inconveniences through floods. There has been considerable discussion and 
some effort in a small way to relieve these conditions. The recent floods will 
serve to direct attention to a duty the discharge of which has all too long been 
neglected. Engineers agree that the bad conditions referred to could be pre¬ 
vented through the application of laws with which engineers are familiar. The 
sections affected by these floods lie in the very heart of the United States, and 
it goes without saying that extraordinary efforts ought to be made to protect 
these sections. The work of protection should be commenced in earnest and 
should be carried to successful conclusion, even though it requires an enterprise 
on a scale as large as the Panama Canal. A comprehensive engineering plan 
will provide the people living in the heart of America with protection from 
floods. This is the opinion of experienced engineers. The good work can not 
be commenced any too soon. Such an enterprise is in harmony with the pledge 
given by the Democratic national convention for 1912. 

Let this platform plank be faithfully carried out. 

There can be no escape from the conclusion that this plank in the 
platform should “be faithfully carried out.” It was written into 
the platform at a time when the conscience of the whole country had 
been aroused by the frightful destruction in the lower valley by the 
flood of 1912. Congress had made large appropriations both for the 
reconstruction of the levees which had been destroyed as well as for 
relief work among the people of the valley who had been rendered 
homeless and destitute. It declared that the building of levees for 
the prevention of overflow of the land and its consequent devastation 
“ imposes an obligation which alone can’be discharged by the Federal 
Government.” Recognizing the importance and the justice of this 


12 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


policy, Mr. Wilson, in his address accepting the nomination of the 
Baltimore convention on this platform declared unequivocally that 
“in the case of the Mississippi River, that great central artery of 
our trade, it is plain that the Federal Government must build and 
maintain the levees and keep the great waters in harness for the gen¬ 
eral use. It is plain, too, that vast sums of money must be spent to 
develop new waterways where trade will be most served and trans¬ 
portation most readily cheapened by them. Such expenditures are 
no largess on the part of the Government; they are national invest¬ 
ments.” 

It is now up to Congress to fulfill these pledges to the people and 
to add this great piece of constructive legislation as one of the gems 
which are to form the crowning glory of the legislative achievements 
of the Sixty-third Congress. 



Chapter II. 


HISTORY OF THE LEVEE SYSTEM. 


The levee or “ dyke ” system for the control of floods is not a new 
theory; in fact, it is as old as recorded history. As early as the 
twelfth dynasty, the Pharaohs were building levees along the banks 
of the Nile for the purpose of preventing the overflow of its alluvial 
deltas. 

Sir William Willcocks, late director general of reservoirs in Egypt, 
in a lecture delivered at a meeting of the Khedivial Geographical 
Society on the Assuan Reservoir in 1904, said: 

Of all the methods which Egypt has ever employed for the increase of her 
material wealth, there is only one which has never failed her. Whenever the 
country has turned to the Nile it has not been disappointed. It was so 4,000 
years ago, when the problems of water storage and flood control engaged the 
attention of the Pharaohs of the twelfth dynasty. It is so to-day. The problem 
which the engineers of Amenemhat solved differ but little from the problems 
which we are called to solve to-day. In those ancient times the absence of 
masonry regulators made it more difficult to control floods than to provide 
additional water. For us the provision of additional water is more difficult 
than protection from floods. Both, however, are equally important. 

There is a popular belief that the only function which the levees 
on the Nile perform is to conserve the flood waters for purposes of 
irrigation. This is a mistake. The great enemies of Egypt with 
which all the dynasties of the past have had to grapple are two¬ 
fold—drought and inundation. 

The excavation of Lake Moeris far away on the upper reaches of 
the Nile, which served as a reservoir for the regulation of its flow, 
was one of the greatest engineering feats of antiquity. It brought 
into subjugation the raging floods and released them only as the 
needs of the lower valley required. These floods were necessary to 
the very existence of the people along the lower valley, and it was 
because he foresaw that this great fountain of life would fall into 
the hands of the Theban King “ who knew not Joseph ” that this 
virtuous statesman foretold the seven lean years and bade Pharaoh 
lay up corn against them. It is nevertheless true that these floods 
when released had to be controlled by levees to prevent destructive 
overflow of the deltas which were to be irrigated. 

These levees extend along both banks of the Nile, just as they do 
along the Mississippi River, but beginning on the upper reaches 
other dikes are constructed running at right angles to the main 
levee across the valley at varying distances, making a checkerboard 
of levees throughout the entire area. These latter lines are built 
in the interest of irrigation, which is necessary, because there is no 

30573°—H. Rep. 300, 63-2, pt 2-2 13 



14 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


rainfall, and for 500 miles below the confluence of the White Nile 
and the Blue Nile there is not a single tributary. 

The Nile in flood time is considerably above the level of the 
country from Assuan to the sea. In upper Egypt a very high flood 
is about 4 feet above the country; in middle Egypt about 8 feet, 
and in some places along the lower reaches of the river it is as much 
as 12 feet higher than the adjacent country. In 1861, 1868, 1866, 
1869, 1874, and 1878 there were crevasses in these levees which 
caused great destruction both of life and .property. Sir William 
Wilcocks, in the lecture above referred to, states that the destruction 
of life and property in the floods of 1863 and 1878 was very great— 
44 the whole western half of the delta proper was swept by the river 
and, as the canals there have not got good high banks, the people 
had no place of shelter to flee to and were drowned in very great 
numbers. The same thing would happen again if a breach were to 
occur now, only the damage would be far more serious. The country 
is covered with villas and rich plantations, and the lowlands to the 
very edges of Lake Borrillos are unclaimed and uninhabited. A 
breach anywhere within 100 kilometers of the Barrage during a very 
high flood would be a national disaster.” 

The following description of a flood scene on the Nile reads almost 
as though it were an extract from a press dispatch from the lower 
Mississippi: 

The terror reigning over the whole country during a very high flood is very 
striking. The Nile banks are covered with booths at intervals of 50 meters; 
each booth has two watchmen, and lamps are kept burning all night. Every 
danger spot has a gang of 50 or 100 special men. The Nile is covered with 
steamers and boats carrying sacks, stakes, and stones, while the bank along 
nearly their entire length are protected by stakes supporting cotton and indian 
corn stalks, keeping the waves off the loose earth of the banks. 

******* 

The news that the bank had breached spread fast through the village; the 
villagers rushed out onto the banks with their children and cattle and every¬ 
thing they possessed. The confusion was indescribable. Narrow banks covered 
with buffaloes, children, poultry, and household furniture. The women assem¬ 
bled around the local saints’ tomb, beating their breasts, kissing the tomb, and 
uttering loud cries. 

Sir William concluded this most interesting and instructive lecture 
in these words: 

Four thousand years ago Egypt stood at the parting of the ways and adopted 
a system of water storage and flood control suited to basin irrigation which 
served the country well for thousands of years. To-day Egypt stands again 
at the parting of the ways, and may it be her destiny to adopt a system of water 
storage and flood control suited to perennial irrigation which may stand her 
well for the thousands of years which may yet have to come. 

The waters of the Tigris and of the Euphrates were confined to 
their banks by a system of levees 44 in the days when the good Queen 
Simiramis was dazzling the Assyrian nobles with the gorgeous 
splendor of her court and enslaving the hearts of those young gal¬ 
lants with the luster of her wondrous eyes.” 

When the Renaissance raised the clouds which had kept Europe in 
darkness for so many centuries we learn that levees extended for 
many miles along the River Po. About A. D. 1300 they were ex¬ 
tended much farther until about the beginning of the last century 
they had been completed to its mouth. In Holland the levee system 
has been carried further than in any other country in the world, and 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


15 


it is estimated that they have cost to date more than $1,500,000,000. 
Immense areas which were formerly submerged to a depth of 15 feet 
by the North Sea have been successfully protected against these de¬ 
structive tides. Perhaps the most stupendous undertaking was the 
reclamation by means of levees of the Zuyder Zee. This great lake 
is supposed to have been formed in the thirteenth century by terrible 
storms which swept the North Sea into the low country, drowning 
some 10,000 people. In 1894 a great levee was constructed which 
shut out the North Sea and 1,000,000 acres of land were reclaimed, 
at an estimated cost of $95 an acre. Levees, in fact, have been con¬ 
structed for the purpose of controlling floods on nearly every river 
of Europe and Asia. On the Rhone, the Danube, the Volga, the 
Yellow River, the Po, the Vistula, the Arno, the Rhine, and in fact 
all rivers where the valley is subject to annual inundation. 

The theory, then, is no new one, and all the phenomena in any way 
related to river regulation and flood control by this means have been 
subjected to the test of time. 

The Levee System of the Mississippi River. 


The levee system of the Mississippi River has gone hand in hand 
with its civilization. The first settlements by Europeans in the lower 
valley of the Mississippi were at New Orleans and Natchez. The 
heights around Natchez of course rendered the construction of levees 
unnecessary there, but at New Orleans precautions were necessary 
to protect the settlers from overflow, and had to be taken at once. In 
1717 De la Tour, the engineer who laid out the city of New Orleans, 
constructed the first levee along the river front which was completed 
10 years later, extending for about 18 miles above the city. As the 
country was gradually settled by immigrants, the levees were ex¬ 
tended upstream, each planter building the line along his river front. 
The system was extended in this desultory way as the country was 
slowly settled, and in 1812 Stoddard in his history of Louisiana tells 
us— 

these banks (levees) extend on both sides of the river from the lowest settle¬ 
ments to Point Coupee on one side, and to the neighborhood of Baton Rouge 
on the other, except where the country remains unoccupied. 

This was the situation when Jefferson purchased Louisiana. 

By 1828, according to the Delta survey (Humphreys and Abbott), 
the levees had been extended as high up as Red River Landing on 
the west bank and to the high bluffs at Baton Rouge on the east bank. 

By 1844, according to the same authority, the line had been ex¬ 
tended as far north as Napoleon, Ark., on the west bank, and discon¬ 
nected sections extended more or less along the Yazoo Basin. Quite 
an impetus was giA T en to levee building in 1850 by the passage of 

The Swamp and Overflow Land Act. 


This law o-ave to the various States of the Mississippi Valley “ the 
whole of those swamp and overflow lands made unfit thereby for 
cultivation which shall remain unsold at the passag*e of this act, 
the proceeds of the sales of these lands to be devoted by the States 
“ to the construction of levees and drains.” The purpose to which 


16 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


the money so derived was in fact devoted by the various States which 
participated in the distribution depended entirely upon local condi¬ 
tions. In the States north of the mouth of the Ohio River the money 
was devoted to draining these swamp and overflowed lands into the 
tributaries of the Mississippi River, the natural and inevitable result 
of which was to increase the flood heights of the lower reaches of the 
river. The purpose to which the money so derived was devoted along 
the reaches of the river below Cairo was to the construction of levees, 
which had to be made higher and stronger to give vent to the in¬ 
creased flood heights occasioned as above related. 

In a very elaborate report on the “ Overflows of the Delta of the 
Mississippi,” prepared under instructions from the Secretary of War 
by Charles Ellet, jr., in 1850-1852 (S. Ex. Doc. 20, 32d Cong., 1st 
sess.), the disastrous effect of the extensive drainage of the lands in 
the upper valley upon the riparian lands in the lower reaches of the 
river was set out in great detail. The following extract is reproduced 
from this report: 

It is not for one acting for tlie moment as an officer of the Government to 
criticize the past or to dictate the future legislation of Congress, yet it may 
not be inappropriate to say that if the vast bonus granted for the purpose of 
excluding the water from the swamps above and sending it down upon the 
States below had been accompanied by an adequate appropriation to enable 
those States below to give vent to that water or to protect their borders from the 
deluge which it will bring, the good which was intended by the grant would 
have been accompanied by less destruction than is now certain, without addi¬ 
tional legislation, to follow the donation. 

* * * * * * * 

The process by which the country above is relieved is that by which the 
country below is ruined. 

The following, taken from the report of Humphreys and Abbott, 
gives in detail the condition of the levees along the entire line when 
the great flood of 1858 came. This flood was the greatest which had 
ever come dow T n the river. Its volume, measured at Columbus, Ky., 
showed 1,475,000 cubic feet per second, and many levees were breached. 
Referring first to the levees along the St, Francis Basin, the report 
states: 

The levees had all been made since the flood of 1851 and consequently had 
never been tested. They were much too low, hardly averaging 3 feet in height, 
although some of them across old bayous were of enormous size, as, for instance, 
a short one near the northern boundary of Crittenden County, which was re¬ 
ported to be 40 feet high, 40 feet wide at the top, and 320 feet wide at the 
bottom. Generally their cross section was much too small, and, upon the whole, 
they were quite inadequate to effect the object for which they were intended. 

From the mouth of St. Francis River to Old Town the levees were complete. 
Between this place and Scrubgrass Bayou there were several gaps, amounting to 
about 14 miles. Thence to Napoleon there were no levees. Between Napoleon 
and the high land south of Cypress Creek there were only about 3 miles of levee. 
Thence nearly to Point La Hache. below New Orleans, the embankments were 
completed. 

On the left bank, excepting a few unimportant private levees, there were no 
artificial embankments between the mouth of the Ohio and the southern bound¬ 
ary of Tennessee. The near approach of the hills to the river throughout the 
greater part of this region has the effect of flooding by hill drainage the narrow 
belts of swamp land, and there is no immediate prospect of any attempt to re¬ 
claim them. Whether leveed or not, they are too trifling in extent to have any 
sensible influence upon the high-water level of the Mississippi River. 

The Yazoo bottom below the Mississippi State boundary was considered to be 
well protected by levees. They, however, averaged only about 4 feet in height, 
and having been mainly constructed since 1853. had never been tested by a great 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 17 

flood. They were much too low and too narrow, as the flood of 1858 proved. 
The levee which closed the Yazoo Pass was an enormous embankment across 
an old lake. It was 1,152 feet long and 28 feet high, with a base spread out 
to the width of 300 feet. About 10 miles of gaps in Coahoma and Tunica 
Counties (between islands 51 and 67) had been closed in the winter of 1858, 
and consequently the levees had not had time to settle properly before the oc¬ 
currence of the high water. There was only one open gap. It was nearly op¬ 
posite Helena, and had been caused by a caving bank. 

Between Vicksburg and Baton Rouge, on the left bank, the levees were com¬ 
plete where there was any occasion for them. The hills approach so near to 
the river in this part of its course that the bottom lands are limited in extent,, 
and hence somewhat liable to injury from sudden upland drainage. 

The damage done by the floods of 1858 and 1859 had been repaired 
and great progress was being made in the further extension and 
strengthening of the line when ? in 1861, grim-visaged war showed his 
wrinkled and most horrid front. 

Great Disaster of the War Between the States. 

It is impossible to overstate the extent of this disaster to the indus¬ 
trial development of the deltas of the lower Mississippi. 

The valley was literally and utterly laid waste. Here in truth the 
cry of havoc was heeded when they let slip the dogs of war. The 
ruin which was general throughout the South was greatest in the 
alluvial deltas, where the planters shared the common disaster with 
their neighbors in the hills, and, in addition, suffered the wreck of 
their properties caused by the increasing and unresisted floods of 
the next 10 or 15 years. To illustrate the measure of this disaster 
the following figures from the Census Bulletin will be interesting: 
Farm property in 1850, in the States of Arkansas, Mississippi, and 
Louisiana, was valued at $201,963,344; in 1860 it had risen to the 
enormous sum of $607,385,474, more than 300 per cent increase in 
10 years. In 1870 it was listed at $213,885,602, a decrease of $400,- 
000,000 in 10 years. In addition to this, the entire labor system had 
been revolutionized, and a veritable saturnalia of misgovernment. 
which would be dignified beyond its deserts by calling it chaotic, 
added horror to the general wreckage. Then, as a fitting cap to this 
climax of misfortunes, Congress imposed a tax of 3 cents a pound 
(about $15 a bale) on all cotton produced for the three years of 1866, 
1867, and 1868. In the meantime the Star of Empire had led the 
ever industrious, enterprising, and aspiring youths of the older 
States, and the army of homeseekers who sought refuge in this free 
country from the hardships and oppressions of the Old World, into 
the great States along the upper reaches of the Mississippi and the 
Missouri. The wilderness was subdued; the prairies were peopled 
with virile and industrious farmers; thousands, aye, tens of thousands 
of swamps, marshes, and an infinite variety of natural reservoirs 
were drained precipitately into the great tributaries, causing each 
succeeding flood to rise higher, and making the task of its control 
annually the more difficult. 

The riparian owners, nevertheless, in spite of their unhappy situ¬ 
ation, continued their struggle against the great floods which were 
poured down annually upon them from the rapidly developing States 
of the upper drainage basins, but they were unequal to the ever-grow¬ 
ing burden. 


18 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


The Great Flood of 1874. 

The great floods of 1862, 1865, and 1867 had almost destroyed the 
levees which had been so nearly built up to standard when Hum¬ 
phreys and Abbott filed their report in 1861 (S. Ex. Doc. 8, 40th 
Cong., 1st sess.). Then in 1874 came what proved in many sections 
of the delta to have been the most disastrous of all floods. The utter 
wreck and desolation of this once happy valley seemed as complete 
as it was cruel. 

One-half of the lands behind the levees was sold by the tax col¬ 
lector in a vain but desperate effort to work out salvation unaided by 
the Government at Washington. It was perfectly evident that either 
the great alluvial deltas must be abandoned to the jungle, and this, 
the most fertile valley in the world, lapse again into “ some vast 
wilderness, some boundless contiguity of shade,” or the Federal Gov¬ 
ernment must come to the rescue. 

No relief came, however, from that source, and the prospect of an 
enforced abandonment of the whole delta country grew sadder and 
more certain with the monotony of its recurring floods. 

Collapse of the Local Levee System. 

In 1882, 1883, and 1884 the deltas were visited for the first time by 
three successive and excessive floods. In 1882 there were 284 cre¬ 
vasses; in 1883, 224; in 1884, 204; 712 crevasses in three years. 

In his report to Congress heretofore referred to Mr. Eliet had fore¬ 
told with prophetic words how the drainage of the great plains along 
the upper reaches of the river would surely overwhelm the deltas 
along the lower river unless Congress should help the people there 
to build their levees higher and stronger. 

The process by which the country above is relieved is that by which the 
country below is ruined. 

This was the report of 1852. Now, mark how well the sequel held 
together. In 1850 farm values in the 11 great States between the 
Missouri and the Ohio Rivers was given by the census at $827,577,776. 
The great flood of 1858 measured 1,475,000 cubic feet per second. In 
1880 farm values in the same 11 States, indicating the measure of 
their improvement, was given at $5,317,880,906, and the flood of 1882 
measured 1,800,000 feet per second. In the light of these facts, how 
pregnant of truth, how prophetic, are these words quoted from the 
same report: 

The true difficulties of this problem will now be appreciated. We can pro¬ 
tect Louisiana by simple means from all ordinary natural floods. But the 
great problem with which we have to cope is to ascertain how to protect her 
from the deluge created by the artificial improvements which are accelerating 
the drainage of the prairies and diverting the collected waters from their natu¬ 
ral course through the lowlands. 

It will thus be seen that it is the pursuit of individual and public interests 
through all of the northern States of the Mississippi Valley that pours the excess 
of water down. It may possibly be considered, therefore, that it is the common 
duty of the States to guard the land which these improvements now endanger. 

These floods had at least answered once and for all the mooted 
question of the ability of the riparian owners to protect themselves 
against the ever-increasing volume of flood water. In these three 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


19 


years the planter had been despoiled of stock, of tenants, and of 
credit “ all his little chickens and their dam at one fell swoop.” 

It was no longer a theory. Without the aid of the Federal 
Government the delta must be returned to the denizens of the jungle 
from whom it had been won and the fight for its civilization must 
be abandoned. This was not conjecture. The prostrate body lay 
before Congress. There was the proof which Horatio required upon 
the platform at Elsinor: “ The sensible and true avouch of their own 
eyes.” 

Conventions were held in the delta to discuss the advisability 
of continuing the unequal struggle against the increasing floods. 
The question was most seriously debated whether to give up the 
fight and surrender that fertile and now beautiful valley to the 
jungle.. The following is taken from the statement of Senator 
Percy in the hearings: 

Before the Federal Government had indicated a willingness to help in this 
work, the Yazoo Delta, more favorably situated with regard to levees than any 
other district on the river, because it is a great basin divided into two districts 
with only one outlet, and therefore there is no difficulty arising out of the feasi¬ 
bility of protection by the levee system—in 1880 more than 50 per cent of the 
land of the Yazoo Delta had gone back to the State of Mississippi to pay levee 
lebts. In our efforts to protect ourselves by our own taxation, we had taxed 
out of the hands of individuals back into the hands of the State, where it yielded 
no revenue, either for State or county purposes, more than one-half of the 
total acreage of that delta. The fight was over and we were whipped. And 
elsewhere along the river, in the great majority of places, no levee districts had 
been formed. Then the Government came in and held out a hope—it was not 
what they expended, because it was comparatively little—which gave a ficti¬ 
tious sense of security to the people, and they took heart and borrowed money 
on credit based on belief in Federal aid. 

These brave men blessed with courage and energy, and vigor, and 
determination, the characteristics of that matchless band who had 
wrested the wilderness from the savage and carved the name 
“American Pioneer” upon the rock of ages; in the most fertile spot 
in that great valley aptly called the cornucopia of the world; in the 
prime of a vigorous and virile manhood, in a land blessed above all 
others with sunshine and shower, for the first time in the history 
of their race gave up the Divine Commission “to subdue the earth,” 
and surrendered! 

In the Yazoo Basin, the richest and most easily protected of all 
the deltas, one-half of the land was forfeited for taxes. The ripa¬ 
rian owner had kept the faith, he had fought the good fight, but he 
was whipped! Verily he could have exclaimed in righteous humilia¬ 
tion : “After me the deluge! ” 

Let it be borne in mind that it was not the levee system which 
collapsed. It was that system when left solely to the people of the 
deltas to maintain. Having turned for a while to trace the long 
fight waged in Congress from the earliest days to enlist the Federal 
Government as an ally, we shall return to our story and see how 
hope was revived, and the battle lines re-formed under the leader¬ 
ship and direction of the Mississippi Kiver Commission. 


Chapter III. 

THE LONG FIGHT FOR FEDERAL AID. 


The control of the floods of the lower Mississippi is a subject 
which has vexed the minds of both the statesmen and engineers of 
this country from the date when jurisdiction of the entire river 
was transferred to the Federal Government by the treaty which 
consummated the Louisiana Purchase. Just to what extent the 
Federal Government should undertake to improve the river has 
been the mooted question. From the beginning there have always 
been those who insisted that whatever works of improvement were 
carried on by the Federal Government should be solely in the 
interest of the navigation of the river. On the other hand there 
has been an equally insistent demand that the control of the flood 
waters of the lower river, because of the magnitude of the problem, 
the extent of the area to be protected, the almost immeasurable 
potentialities of these fertile acres, was a national problem. 

The navigation of the Mississippi River was one of the most 
important, as it was one of the most exciting, questions which com¬ 
manded the attention of the residents of the valley in the early 
years immediately succeeding the Louisiana Purchase. 

In fact the great dissatisfaction of the people beyond the Alle¬ 
gheny Mountains over the question of free navigation of the Mis¬ 
sissippi River was one of the pegs, if not the main one, upon which 
Aaron Burr hung his hopes for a separate empire in the West. 
The transfer of Louisiana to the Union guaranteed “the free navi¬ 
gation ” of the river to the sea, unobstructed by political agents of 
any foreign Government, but the dwellers of the valley complained 
most bitterly that the stream filled with snags and other obstruc¬ 
tions was, in fact, no more “ free ” than when the haughty Don 
obstructed the passage. 

Henry Clay in an impassioned speech in the Senate complained: 

Around the region of the coast of the Atlantic, the Mexican Gulf, and the 
Pacific coast, everywhere, we pour out in boundless and unmeasured streams the 
treasure of the United States, but none to the interior of the West, the Valley 
of the Mississippi. Every cent is contested and denied for that object. Sir, I 
call upon the northwestern Senators, upon western Senators, upon eastern Sena¬ 
tors, upon Senators from all quarters of the Union, to recollect that we are part 
of our common country. 

This was in answer to the suggestion that the improvement of the 
river in accordance with a suggestion of the Army Engineers was 
really a local and not a national question. 

20 



FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


21 


The First Official Report on the Mississippi. 

In 1822 Bernard & Totten, of the Army Engineer Corps, after a 
very extensive and elaborate study of the river made a report in 
which they declared (H. Doc. 35, 1.7th Cong., 2d sess.) : 

The only means (of improving navigation) which appear practicable to us 
is the construction of dikes. They operate by diminishing the current above 
them, thus economizing the expanse of water, at the same time constraining 
the curreut to rush with greater velocity through the narrow space to be 
deepened. 

While the waters of this river are over its banks, the operation of the cur¬ 
rent being in proportion to its elevation and consequent increase of velocity, 
the changes which are produced in the bed of the river are great, sudden, and 
numerous. 

This was the first official report on the river. There have been 
many investigations since then; much elaborate study; almost limit¬ 
less investigation and observation; in fact, it can be said with no 
exaggeration that no river in all the world has been observed with 
such relentless scrutiny as has the Mississippi during the century 
since it passed to the control of the United States. It is a high trib¬ 
ute to the engineering skill and judgment of Bernard & Totten that 
every board of engineers, civil and military, which has been called 
upon to study and report upon the subject since their day has agreed 
to their conclusion “ that the only means which appear practicable 
to us is the construction of dykes.” 

Nothing came of this report, however, but the floods which con¬ 
tinued, particularly the two great overflows of 1828 and 1844, stirred 
the people in the valley to the lievliest activities. Without the con¬ 
trolling influence of levees innumerable sand bars were habitually 
formed in the channel which at many places was less than three 
feet deep. On these bars the logs and trees which were annually 
washed into the main stream were accumulated, forming very dan¬ 
gerous obstructions to the passage of all water craft- Bernard & 
Totten had reported in 1822 that “the only means (of improving 
these conditions) which appears practicable to us is the construction 
of dykes,” and the people of the entire valley set about in a most 
determined fashion to have Congress undertake this work. 

Memphis Convention of 1845. 

In 1845 a convention of the Southern and Western States was held 
at Memphis, Tenn., for the purpose of considering the general inter¬ 
ests of the Southern and Western States and particularly the im¬ 
provement of the Mississippi River. 

John C. Calhoun presided over the convention and upon taking 
the chair made a notable speech in which, among other things, he 
said: 

He did not bimself believe in the power of the General Government to con¬ 
duct a system of internal improvement. He had, independently of other 
objections, seen the evil effects of it in too many instances where it has been 
attempted, and the system of logrolling which ensued; but in relation to the 
great highway of western commerce, at least, the great inland sea of the 
country—the Mississippi—he did not for a moment question that Government 
was as much obligated to protect, defend, and improve it in every particular, as 
it was to conduct these operations on the Atlantic seaboard. It was the genius 
of our Government, and what was to him its beautiful feature, that what 


22 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


individual enterprise could effect alone was to be left to individual enterprise; 
what a State and individuals could achieve together was left to the joint action 
of States and individuals, but what neither of these separately or conjoined 
were able to accomplish, that, and that only, was the province of the Federal 
Government. He thought this was the case in reference to the Mississippi 
River. (De Bow’s Review, Vol. I (1S46), p. 14.) 

This convention adopted a set of resolutions. The one touching 
the Mississippi was as follows: 

Resolved, That millions of acres of public domain lying on the Mississippi 
River and its tributaries, now worthless for purposes of cultivation, might 
be reclaimed by throwing up embankments, so as to prevent overflow, and 
that this convention recommend such measures as may be deemed expedient to 
accomplish that object, by grant of said lands or an appropriation of money. 

These resolutions were subsequently presented to Congress in the 
form of a memorial and referred to an appropriate committee. The 
following extract from this memorial will prove interesting: 

These expenditures on the Mississippi thus far, if reports are to be credited, 
have produced no results corresponding to the vast sums appropriated. When 
the channel has been straightened at one point it has been lengthened at 
another, and obstructions or deposits in one bend have only been transferred 
in their removal to another. “Sawyers” and “planters” have in one season 
been reduced in number to be replaced by the succeeding one. 

The only fact clearly established, and it is one to which attention should 
be particularly directed as bearing with peculiar influence on the proposition 
submitted, is that where the banks of the Mississippi have been leveed and 
prevented from inundating the swamps the spring rises are scarcely perceptible, 
and the surplus waters are discharged by deepening the bed; its currents no 
longer able to rise and expand over a wider surface, they have to deepen the 
bed to furnish vent for the waters to be discharged. The reclaiming, there¬ 
fore, of the swamps and confining the river to its bed will deepen it, and do 
more to preserve unimpaired the navigation of the Mississippi than all the 
projects which have hitherto been devised or acted on for its improvement. The 
suggestion, however, is worthy of examination, and it is the stronger recom¬ 
mended as it may accomplish a great object at comparatively little cost. The 
swamps of the Mississippi, now worthless, and made so by the inundations of 
that river, may be made, by their own reclamation, the instruments of im¬ 
proving the navigation of that stream. 

Once again it had been ascertained that the river could not be im¬ 
proved without the construction of levees along its banks, but as these 
levees, though absolutely necessary in the interest of navigation, 
would nevertheless protect vast areas of fertile privately owned lands 
from annual overflow, objections were persistent and frequently 
potent that this was not a national question. 

Mr. Calhoun, on behalf of the committee, reported the resolutions 
to the Senate in an elaborate report (S. Doc. 410, 29th Cong., 1st 
sess.). Referring to the particular resolution above quoted the report 
stated: 

As fertile as this great body of land is, by far the greater part is at present 
of little or no value, in consequence of its swampy character and being subject 
to inundation, and must remain so; alike unprofitable to the public and indi¬ 
viduals, so long as they may remain in their present condition. But they must 
remain so until reclaimed by embankments. To meet the expense of making 
them, the convention recommends the grant of lands or appropriation of money 
by Congress. 

It concluded with a recommendation that these lands be “ ceded 
to the States in which they may, respectively, lie.” 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER, 


23 


Chicago Convention of 1847. 

In 1847, as a result of continuous agitation through the valley, 
a national convention was held in the city of Chicago to consider 
the general subject of the Commerce and Navigation of the Valley 
of the Mississippi. 

Thomas H. Benton, then a Senator from Missouri, addressed a 
letter to the delegates very strongly indorsing the general pur¬ 
pose of the convention and particularly urging the proposition that 
it was the duty of the Federal Government to improve the Missis¬ 
sippi River. Extracts from this letter will be found elsewhere 
(p. 76), setting forth his views as to the constitutional questions 
involved and also his ideas as to the national quality of the project. 

Another great convention was held at Cincinnati, with the net 
result that the public sentiment aroused by these repeated meetings 
at last found expression in the Halls of Congress and brought the 
Nation to a realization of the fact that the responsibility was upon 
Congress and that the great interests to be conserved by the proper 
improvement and control of the river were so tremendous as to 
transcend the possibility of local solution and mounted to the high 
dignity of a national problem. 

Recognizing the justice of this contention, Congress enacted the 
law of September 28, 1850, known ever since as the swamp and 
overflow land act. 

This law gave to the various States of the Mississippi Valley all the 
wet lands then remaining unsold, the proceeds of their sale to be de¬ 
voted to their reclamation by levees or drains. This was the first 
appropriation by Congress in the aid of levee construction, but the 
effects of the draining of the lowlands in the States in the northern 
part of the valley so increased the flood heights on the lower river 
that the situation there grew steadily worse. (See p. 44.) 

Humphreys and Abbott’s Report. 

In addition to the “swamp and overflow act” of 1850, elaborate 
surveys of the Mississippi River were authorized, which resulted in 
two noteworthy reports—the one elsewhere referred to (p. 24), by 
Mr. Charles Ellet, made in 1852, the other by Capt. A. A. Humphreys, 
in collaboration with Lieut. Abbott, both of the Army Engineer Corps. 

These two eminent engineers devoted 10 years to the study of the 
subject in hand, and in 1861 made a report to Congress on the Physics 
and Hydraulics of the Mississippi River, which has since that time 
been regarded by all students of river hydraulics as the standard 
classic. Many theories are advanced for the control of the flood 
waters of the Mississippi River after every disastrous flood. Public 
prints are filled with articles written by those who believe they have 
made a great discovery. The levee system is condemned as a failure, 
and what the writer honestly, though erroneously, believes to be a 
new idea is proposed. It is interesting to read in the very elaborate 
report of Humphreys and Abbott how all these so-called new theories 
were put to test long before the present generation was born. 

This report contained the following: 

ANALYSIS OF PLANS FOR PROTECTION. 

Three distinct systems have been proposed for the protection of the bottom 
lands against overflow. These are: First, to modify the actual relations exist- 


24 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI EIVEE. 


ing between tlie accelerating and retarding forces in the channel, in such a 
manner as to enable the former to carry off the surplus flood water without so 
great a rise in the surface as they now require. To this system belong cut-offs. 
Second, to reduce the maximum discharge of the river. To this system belong 
diversion of tributaries, artificial reservoirs, and artificial outlets. Third, to 
confine the water to the channel and allow it to regulate its own discharge. 
To this system belong levees or artificial embankments. Each of these systems 
has its advantages and its disadvantages. Before deciding, then, upon the best 
practical system of protection from the floods of the Mississippi, each system 
must be examined in respect to its feasibility, its dangers, and its cost as applied 
to that river. This will be done separately for each plan in turn. 

Each of these plans is then discussed most elaborately and treated 
both from the scientific standpoint of the engineer as well as from the 
historical point of view. All the rivers of the world which had been 
subjected to the skill of the engineer were studied, and their conclu¬ 
sions on these new theories stated thus: 

It has been shown by the preceding discussion that a cut-off raises the surface 
of the river at the foot of the cut nearly as much as it depresses it at the head. 
The country above the cut is therefore relieved from the floods only at the 
expense of the country below. Moreover, if a series of cut-offs were to be 
made extending to the mouth of the river, the principles educed show that the 
heights of the floods would be regularly decreased from a point near midway 
of the series to the upper end and regularly increased from the same point to 
the lower end. The system, therefore, is entirely inapplicable to the Mississippi 
River, in whole or in part. 

The next plan considered was that of diversion of tributaries. 
This whole subject is elaborated and illumined by a discussion of 
every detail and its utter impracticability demonstrated. 

The next question was the plan of the reservoir. This is discussed 
at great length and the question viewed from every angle and the 
conclusion stated in these words: 

The idea that the Mississippi Delta may be economically secured against 
inundation by such dams has been conclusively proved by the operation of this 
survey to be in the highest degree chimerical. 

The next question considered was the plan of outlets and after 
the same elaborate discussion and investigation which was unvary¬ 
ingly devoted to all plans, the conclusion as to outlets is thus stated: 

Enough has been said to demonstrate, with all the certainty of which the 
subject is capable, the disastrous consequences that must follow the resort to 
this means of protection. 

The next plan considered was the levee system. Twenty pages of 
this large report were devoted to the discussion of the levee system. 
The experience of all countries was available, as well as the ex¬ 
perience of our own people on the Mississippi River since the levee 
system was first inaugurated in 1717. 

The report of Mr. Ellet recommended as means by which the 
floods of the delta could be prevented—first, levees; second, the 
prevention of cut-offs; third, outlets; and, fourth, reservoirs. He 
is the only engineer who has made a study of the Mississippi River, 
so far as we have been able to ascertain, and who recommended reser¬ 
voirs as a practical and efficient means of preventing floods in the 
lower Mississippi. In submitting Ellet’s report to the Secretary of 
Wav, Col. J. J. Abert, of the Corps of Topographical Engineers, 
dissented on this point. He said: 

He also calls to his aid a fourth accessory means of controlling these floods; 
that of reservoirs in the mountain gorges near the heads of the principal 
streams. While I willingly admit that all the speculations of a man of intellect 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OP THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


25 


are full of interest and deserving of careful thought, yet I can not agree with 
him that these reservoirs would have any good or preventive effect upon the per¬ 
nicious inundations of this river, and even doubt if the water so proposed to be 
collected would have any appreciable and certainly not an injurious effect upon 
the inundated region. These reservoirs can, of course, collect only the waters 
which shall drain into them and can have no possible influence upon other 
waters below the reservoir draining space; or, in other words, from the im¬ 
mense plateau or country which lies between the headwaters of these rivers, 
or below points where gorges for reservoirs would probably be found. My im¬ 
pressions are that the pernicious inundations of these rivers are consequent only 
from a general rain or a general and rapid thaw of the snow over this immense 
plateau. The calculation of downfall water has direct reference to this extensive 
plateau, and unless it can be shown that the vast supply of water from this 
plateau, or a large portion of it, would be collected and restrained by these reser¬ 
voirs, I do not perceive their advantage to the system proposed to be adopted. 

Humphreys and Abbott, having devoted 10 years, as above stated, 
to the consideration of the whole subject in all its phases, and having 
digested all plans which had been suggested by Mr. Ellet, concluded 
their report in 1861 with the following recommendation: 

The preceding discussion of the different plans of protection has been so 
elaborate and the conclusions adopted have been so well established that little 
remains to be said under the head of recommendations. It has been demon¬ 
strated that no advantage can be derived either from diverting tributaries or 
constructing reservoirs, and that the plans of cut-offs and of new or enlarged 
outlets to the Gulf are too costly, and too dangerous to be attempted. 

The plan of levees, on the contrary, which has always recommended itself by 
its simplicity and its direct repayment of investments, may be relied upon for 
protecting all the alluvial bottom lands Table to inundation below Cape Girar¬ 
deau. The works, it is true, will be extensive and costly, and will exact much 
more unity of action than has thus far been attained. The recent legislation 
of Mississippi in organizing a judicious State system of operations, however, 
shows that the necessity of more concert is beginning to be understood. When 
each of the other States adopts a similar plan and all unite in a general system 
so far as may be requisite for the perfection of each part, the alluvial valley of 
the Mississippi may be protected against inundation. 

Such was the conclusion of these great engineers at the end of the 
10-year Herculean task. 

Upon the filing of this report in 1861, special committees were 
created by Congress for the consideration of the subject of the im¬ 
provement of the Mississippi Kiver, but the war between the States, 
which followed shortly thereafter, brought the whole subject 
abruptly to an end. 

The destruction of the levees which had been built prior to the 
war, by the floods of 1862-1865, has been stated (p. 17). 

In 1862 Congress directed the Chief of Engineers to examine and 
report upon the condition of the levees, giving an estimate of the 
amount that would be required to repair the breaches which had 
occurred. In the report of Gen. A. A. Humphreys, which followed, 
this significant language appears (S. Ex. Doc. 8,40th Cong., 1st sess.) : 

I have excluded from consideration, as not coming under your instructions, 
those cases where the levees have been virtually destroyed along so great an 
extent of river front, that their repair would be practically the rebuilding of 
the levees of that section of country. 

President Johnson, realizing the wretched plight of the residents 
of the deltas and their hopeless inability to cope with the great floods 
unaided, in vain urged Congress to come to their assistance (p. 10). 

The report showed that in order to repair the breaks, which were 
technically only breaks in an existing line, and leaving out of con¬ 
sideration the long sections which had been washed away or caved 


26 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


into the river, would require an appropriation of $3,900,000. The 
report further stated: 

There are now under cultivation in this region about 1,000,000 acres. 

Of the remaining 19,400 square miles, perhaps, 3,000 square miles within 
that region of the most fertile alluvion, two-thirds of which may be finally 
rendered cultivable under a proper system of leveling and draining. This 
would give 7,000,000 acres of cultivated land, capable of giving a bale of cot¬ 
ton to the acre, or about double the whole cotton crop of the United States in 
1SG0. 

The levees constructed under such a system would not, when greatest, ex¬ 
ceed - in magnitude those on the right branch of the Rhine below Aruheim, 
which protect the most fertile part of Holland. These levees are exposed at 
high water to as strong a current as that on the Mississippi in flood, and also 
to the destructive effects of ice. But the occurrence of crevasses such as take 
place with every flood of the Mississippi are there unknown. Should they 
happen, the ruin of a large part of the most productive portion of Holland 
would follow, as extensive tracts protected by the levees are lower than the 
surface of the sea, and their reclamation from overflow could only be effected 
by a drainage similar to that which has been applied to the Lake of Harlem. 
The supervision, watching, and repair of these levees is costly, but effective 
and remunerative. The levees of the Mississippi as now existing are trifling 
compared to the interests they protect and to the levees of the delta rivers of 
Europe, the Po, the Rhine, and the Vistula. 

* * * * * & * 

The proper establishment and maintenance of the first order of levees 
requires some authority entirely beyond the influence of local interests. 

Congress failed to take the necessary action, and the “ process by 
which the country below was ruined ” continued. 

The Warren Commission and Its Eeport. 

Following, and no doubt in large part induced by, the disastrous 
floods of 1874, described elsewhere (p. 18), Congress once again 
created a commission composed of eminent engineers to investigate 
the subject and report. This commission was headed by Gen. G. K. 
Warren, and its report, which was submitted January 18, 1875, and 
printed as House Executive Document 127, Forty-third Congress, 
second session, covered the entire subject in a most elaborate work 
of 160 pages. This commission, as had all others, declared that the 
only method by which the deltas could be protected from overflow 
was a levee system, but it was further of the opinion that there 
must be one general system of levees to take the place of the various 
State organizations which had been attempting to solve the ques¬ 
tion unaided by the Federal Government. 

The report states: 

In fine, the experience of over 150 years bas utterly failed to create judicious 
laws or effective organization in the several States themselves, and no sys¬ 
tematic cooperation has ever been attempted between them. The latter is no 
less important than the former, for the river has no respect for State bound¬ 
aries and deluges Arkansas through breaks in the levees of Missouri and 
overflows Louisiana by floods passing across the Arkansas line. 

It is a common and apt figure of speech to personify the Mississippi and to 
speak of the conflict waged to protect the country against the inroads of a 
terrible enemy, and yet the army of defense has always been content to remain 
a simple aggregation of independent companies, with here and there a battalion 
under the command of a board of officers. That victory has not more fre¬ 
quently perched upon their banners is surely not surprising. 

The statement that the army of defense had always been “ content ” 
to remain a simple aggregation of independent companies was, of 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


27 


course, inaccurate. The efforts to secure congressional aid which would 
put the whole subject matter under one command with a single head— 
the Federal engineer—-are vividly set forth throughout the debates 
in Congress on the subject for many years prior to this report. Con¬ 
gress had apparently been content, but certainly not the “ army of 
defense.” 

The report also showed that from October, 1866, to October, 1874, 
107 miles of levees had caved into the river in the State of Mississippi 
alone. 

The report, after demonstrating that the levees would have to be 
built higher and stronger, quoted with approval the reference to the 
levees on the Rhine below Arnheim in the report of Gen. Humphreys, 
reproduced above, and concluded as follows: 

Whether the funds necessary to carry this system into operation shall be 
loaned or appropriated by the General Government, or be raised by general 
taxation in the States interested, or be supplied by the owners of the lands to 
be reclaimed, does not properly come within the province of this commission to 
recommend. We are, however, satisfied that in the present impoverished con¬ 
dition of the country but little can be done, either by the States or the landed 
proprietors, unaided by the General Government. 

The Mississippi River Commission. 

About this time Capt. James B. Eads came into national promi¬ 
nence as one of the great authorities on river hydraulics. The con¬ 
struction of the Eads Bridge at St. Louis and the jetties at the mouth 
of the river had given him a popular fame perhaps unequaled by 
that of any other engineer of that day, and his name was therefore 
one to conjure with. He appeared before a committee of Congress 
and declared that in his opinion it was entirely possible and feasible 
so to improve the Mississippi River within the limits of reasonable 
cost as to give it depth sufficiently ample for all purposes of naviga¬ 
tion and at the same time to prevent the overflows of the lower river 
which worked such destruction of property. 

Bills were introduced, and the debates in Congress extended 
through several sessions, some of the most distinguished Members, 
of all parties and from all parts of the L T nion, frequently taking part. 
A bill to create a commission with authority and money to aid in 
the work of levee building was reported and earnestly supported by 
Representatives from eastern and western constituencies. Mr. 
Robinson, of Massachusetts, among other things, said: 

The committee have found these two subjects to be interdependent; they have 
not seen in the investigation they have given that the one necessarily stands 
apart from the other. All the writers and all the engineers from whom they 
have heard declare that in some measure, greater or less, the protection of the 
lands have also an influence upon the navigable character of the river. * * * 

This bill is intended to provide a commission to devise a plan for the im¬ 
provement of the Mississippi River and for the protection of the alluvial lands 
combined. If as a part of the whole plan for the improvement of the river 
for the purposes of navigation and incidental thereto the lands of the valley 
may be protected, I am in favor of it. 

Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks, also then a Member from Massachu¬ 
setts, supported the bill. I quote from his speech, as follows: 

I have already stated that the improvement of the alluvial lands is inci¬ 
dental to this work. It can not be separated from it. No declaration or act 
of Congress can prevent it. If we make the river what it ought to be we will 


28 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


make 40,000,000 acres of the best cotton and sugar lands on the face of the 
earth in consequence of the necessary improvement of the river— 40,000,000 
where now only 1,000,000 exists. It is inseparable from it and incidental to 
the improvement of the river. 

Mr. Garfield, then a Member from Ohio, styled the Mississippi 
“ the most gigantic, single, natural feature of our continent, far 
transcending the glory of the ancient Nile or of any other river on 
earth.” 

And further declared his belief that— 

one of the grandest of our material interests—one that is national in the 
largest material sense—is this great river and its tributaries. 

* * * * * * * 

The statesmanship of America must grapple with the problem of this mighty 
stream; it is too vast for any State to handle; too much for any authority less 
than that of the Nation itself to manage. 

He urged an appropriation for the twofold purpose of improving 
the navigation and protecting the valley from floods. This bill 
failed, but in the following Congress another was enacted (in 1879) 
creating the Mississippi River Commission, to be composed of three 
engineers from the Army Corps, one from the Coast and Geodetic 
Survey, two engineers from civil life, and one distinguished citizen. 
This distinguished citizen was Benjamin Harrison, afterwards Presi¬ 
dent of the United States. Upon his elevation to this high office he 
appointed as his successor Judge R. S. Taylor, of Indiana, who has 
served upon the commission ever since. Section 4 of the act pre¬ 
scribed the duties of the commission as follows: 

Sec. 4. It shall be the duty of said commission to take into consideration and 
mature such plan or plans and estimates as will correct, permanently locate, 
and deepen the channel and protect the banks of the Mississippi River, improve 
and give safety and ease to the navigation thereof, prevent destructive floods, 
promote and facilitate commerce, trade, and the Postal Service; and when so 
prepared and matured to submit to the Secretary of War a full and detailed 
report of their proceedings and actions, and of such plans, with estimates of 
the cost thereof, for the purposes aforesaid, to be by him transmitted to Con¬ 
gress: Provided, That the commission shall report in full upon the practica¬ 
bility, feasibility, and probable cost of the various plans known as the jetty 
system, the levee system, and the outlet system, as well as upon such others as 
they deem necessary. 

FIRST REPORT OF MISSISSIPPI RIVER COMMISSION. 

On the 17th of February, 1880, the Mississippi River Commission 
thus appointed made its first report, from which the following ex¬ 
tract relating to levees is taken: 

There is no doubt that the levees exert a direct action in deepening the 
channel and enlarging the bed of the river during those periods of “ rise ” and 
“ flood ” when by preventing the dispersion of the flood waters over the adjacent 
lowlands, either over the river banks or through bayous and other openings, 
they actually cause the water to rise to a higher level within the river bed than 
it would attain if not thus restrained. 

While it is not claimed that levees in themselves are necessary as a means 
of securing ultimately a deep channel for navigation, it is believed that the 
repair and maintenance of the extensive lines already existing will hasten the 
work of channel improvement through the increased scour and depth of river 
bed which they would produce during the high river stages. They are regarded 
as a desirable, though not a necessary, adjunct in the general system of im¬ 
provement submitted. 

It is obvious that levees are, upon a large portion of the river, essential to 
prevent destruction to life and property by overflow. They “ give safety and 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


29 


ease to navigation and promote and facilitate commerce and trade” by estab¬ 
lishing banks or landing places above the reach of floods, upon which produce 
can be placed while awaiting shipment and where steamboats and other river 
craft can land in times of higher water. 

In a restricted sense, as auxiliary to a plan of channel improvement only, the 
construction and maintenance of a levee system is not demanded; but in a 
larger sense, as embracing not only beneficial effects upon the channel, but as 
a protection against destructive floods, a levee system is essential; and such 
system also promotes and facilitates commerce, trade, and the Postal Service. 

The foregoing is submitted as the opinion of this commission with regard to 
the attributes and functions of levees and their general utility and value. The 
views of the several members, however, are not in entire accord with respect to 
the degree of importance which should attach to the concentration of flood 
waters by levees, as a factor in the plan of improvement of low-water naviga¬ 
tion, which has received the unanimous preference of the commission. 

The particular matter about which there was not “ entire accord ” 
was stated in a minority report signed by Gen. C. B. Comstock and 
Benjamin Harrison. Speaking of the levees in this minority report, 
they say: 

While of the opinion that levees are essential to prevent injury to alluvial lands 
by destructive floods, and that outlets should not in general be used, there are 
some less important points on which we do not concur in the views of the ma¬ 
jority of the commission. * * * For these reasons we are of the opinion 

that levees are of very little value in improving the low-water navigation of 
the river. Of their necessity in protecting alluvial lands against destructive 
floods there can be no doubt, and to obtain such protection the first step would 
be the closure of gaps in existing levees. 

Shortly thereafter Mr. Garfield was nominated for the Presidency, 
and in accepting that nomination said: 

The wisdom of Congress should be invoked to devise some plan by which 
that great river shall cease to be a terror to those who dwell upon its banks 
and by which its shipping may safely carry the industrial products of 25,000,000 
people. 

And in his annual message in December of the same year President 
Hayes said: 

These channels of communication and interchange are the property of the 
Nation. Its jurisdiction is paramount over their waters, and the plainest prin¬ 
ciples of public interest require their intelligent and careful supervision with 
a view of their protection, improvement, and the enhancement of their useful¬ 
ness. 

The project defined by the commission in its report above quoted 
was thereupon adopted by Congress, and an appropriation of 
$1,000,000 made in the following rivers and harbors bill, approved 
March 3, 1881, the last day of President Hayes’s term. This bill, 
however, provided— 

That no portion of the sum hereby appropriated shall be used in the repair or 
construction of levees for the purpose of preventing injury to lands by overflow 
or for any other purpose whatever, except as a means of deepening or improv¬ 
ing the channel of said river. 

Congress had at last decided that the floods of the lower river 
should be controlled “ in the interest of navigation,” and had begun 
the construction of levees, but whether those levees should be built 
high enough to withstand the highest floods, or just high enough 
and strong enough to be washed away when the crisis came, was 
yet to be decided. Bernard and Totten had given the answer in 
their report in 1822. Ellet had given the same answer in 1852. 
Humphreys and Abbott had demonstrated the levee theory in their 

30573°—H. Rep. 300, 63-2, pt 2-3 



80 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


matchless report of 1861, and their conclusions had been indorsed 
by the Warren Commission in 1875. Another commission had now 
been set to work upon the problem. What would their answer be? 

The long fight for Federal aid had found fruition in this act 
creating the commission, and the people of the deltas again took 
hope. “ The genius of our Government, and what was to him its 
beautiful feature,” as. formulated by Mr. Calhoun in the Memphis 
convention of 1845, had been put to the test. The levee problem 
was one “which individual enterprise alone could not effect”; 
neither could “ State and individuals achieve its solution when left 
to their joint action,” and, therefore, as neither of these “separately 
or conjoined were able to accomplish it, its solution was the province 
of the Federal Government.” 

Let us now review the evolution of this problem under the admin¬ 
istration of the Mississippi River Commission. 


Chapter IV. 


LEVEES UNDER THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE MISSISSIPPI 
RIVER COMMISSION. 


The utter collapse of the local levee systems unaided by the Federal 
Government has been noted (p. 18). Let us turn to another page 
and watch the unfolding of events under a different dispensation. 

Inspired by the hope which sprang up in their breasts when Con¬ 
gress at last put its hand to the plow, the people of the deltas set 
about to renew the fight and this time with great earnestness and 
enthusiasm. 

Legislation was secured by the various State governments creating 
levee districts with full power to levy taxes, issue bonds, and do all 
other things necessary to raise sufficient funds to meet the heavy 
burden about to be assumed. 

Civil engineers were employed by them to cooperate with the 
engineers of the Army, and for every dollar appropriated by Con¬ 
gress they contributed two. 

No system of taxation which the wit of man could conjure up was 
overlooked. 

First, they provided an ad valorem levee tax, greater than the 
combined State and county taxes for all other purposes. This was 
collected on all assessable property, both real and personal. In addi¬ 
tion to this they imposed an acreage tax. Then there was a tax on 
privileges; that is to say, a tax on every occupation from storekeeper 
to the man who drives a cart for hire. Nobody was exempt, except 
preachers and doctors. Then they had a produce tax, varying in 
different districts. A dollar a bale on cotton, a tax on every ton of 
hay, every barrel of sugar, every bag of rice, every gallon of molasses, 
every barrel of oysters. 

The only system which escaped their tax assessors was the system 
adopted in Egypt, known as corvee. Corvee is the system by 
which the obligation is imposed upon all the inhabitants in the 
country to labor gratuitously on the levees. Yes; there is one other 
system which apparently was overlooked. Herodotus tells us that 
the old Pharaoh, Sesostris. left many inscriptions upon the monuments 
erected by him in Egypt, in which he testified to the fact that the 
great dykes and embankments built by him along the banks of the 
Nile to protect their country from inundation, had been constructed 
by captives taken in war and “ that no native was employed in the 
laborious part of the undertaking.” It is evident from this that 
even in those ancient days distinguished gentlemen who held offices 
of high importance in the State paid proper regard to vox populi, 

31 



32 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


and were careful to give assurance that the foreigner paid the tax! 
They had no prisoners of war in these deltas; the only ones were the 
convicts, and these were so employed. 

The act of June 28, 1879, creating the Mississippi River Commis¬ 
sion, provided, among other things, that: 

The commission shall take into consideration and mature such plans and esti¬ 
mates as will correct, permanently locate, and deepen the channel and protect 
the banks of the Mississippi River; improve and give safety and ease to the 
navigation thereof; prevent destructive floods; promote and facilitate commerce, 
trade, and the postal service. 

There has never been any disagreement among the membership of 
the commission since the day of its creation down to the present time 
as to the necessity or efficacy of levees as a means of flood protection, 
illumined as their experience has been during the past thirty-odd 
years by long and varied experience with many floods, some of them 
the greatest in the history of the river. They now and always have 
unanimously agreed that the only way to prevent destructive floods 
is by the construction and maintenance of a levee line of sufficient 
grade and section to confine the river to its channel. The proviso 
contained in the first appropriation bill, and which was carried in 
succeeding bills, limited the construction of levees to such location 
and heights as would improve the channel of the river, without any 
reference whatever to the protection of alluvial bottoms from over¬ 
flow. Just how high those levees should be, whether of sufficient 
grade and section to hold the greatest floods which come at long inter¬ 
vals, or only high enough and strong enough to control the usual 
floods which occur every spring, was a source of much vexation, as it 
was the question of deepest study, to the members of the commission 
for many years. 

In the report of 1881 they say: 

The commission is now prepared to recommend as part of a complete system 
of channel improvement, legislation of the following description. * * * It 

is proper that this recommendation should be accompanied by the statement 
that while levees judiciously erected under the system we have indicated would 
produce the maximum effect in channel improvement at a minimum of cost, they 
would not be of a sufficient height to protect the adjacent lands from overflow 
during rare floods. 

As time passed and their study and knowledge of the floods was 
widened by experience, the conviction that levees should be high 
enongh to withstand any flood that might come became more fixed. 

Witness the report of 1883: 

The act creating the commission makes it the duty of the commission to con¬ 
sider the subject of the prevention of destructive floods, and, as bearing upon 
that matter, there is submitted for informaion the following summary of the 
probable extent and cost of such system of levees as would be necessarv for that 
purpose. It may be stated further, that there are serious practicable difficulties 
in the way of constructing a system of levees no higher than would be neces¬ 
sary for the confinement of ordinary floods, and at the same time protecting 
them against disastrous injury from the great floods which occur at irregular 
intervals. 

And in the same report Gen. Gilmore, the president of the com¬ 
mission, adds this statement: 

I concur in the foregoing report of the commission with the single qualifica¬ 
tion that the value of levees as a factor in the problem of channel improvement 
in preventing the wide dispersion of flood waters is not affirmed in the report 
in sufficiently positive terms and with that clearness and prominence to which, 
in my judgment, it is entitled. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI EIVEIL 


33 


Through all these years this question had stood at the doors of 
Congress demanding an answer. Once again it was turned away 
with the wrong one. The advice of Gen. Comstock in the report 
which followed these great floods should have been heeded: 

Before a system of levees can be planned the question must be decided 
whether it shall be attempted to coniine the greatest floods, or only those some¬ 
what less than the greatest. When it is remembered that the cost of these 
levees will necessarily be great: that, as they will be high, breaks through them 
will involve large costs in repairs: that their object is to make possible the safe 
existence behind them of a large and productive population in the alluvial 
bottoms they protect; that only the expectation of such a population can justify 
the large expense involved; that breaks in the levees, when the bottoms are 
filled up by plantations, would involve enormous loss of property; that the 
annual height of floods in rivers is now believed to increase as the country they 
drain is cleared up; in view of all these considerations, it seems the wiser plan 
to face at once a great flood, and to provide for its confinement between levees. 

Unfortunately this was not done, and the levees were raised so 
slowly that they were unable to withstand the recurring floods and 
were continually destroyed; not as fast as they were being con¬ 
structed to be sure, but progress was seriously checked, and the un¬ 
finished line frequently overtopped and destroyed, thus deferring the 
day of their completion, adding enormously to the ultimate cost, and 
entailing frightful and repeated losses throughout the lower valley. 

THE BURROWS COMMITTEE AND ITS REPORT. 

Before the Mississippi River Commission had fairly gotten their 
work under headway they were subjected to unfriendly and, in 
many instances, severe criticism in the public press of the country. 
It was charged that the appropriations made by Congress were be¬ 
ing wholly wasted, and the suggestion was covertly made that the 
funds were in some instances being misapplied. 

On the 7th of August, 1882, a select committe was appointed by 
the Speaker of the House, consisting of eight Members of the House 
of Representatives, with Hon. J. C. Burrows as chairman, in re¬ 
sponse to the following resolution: 

Resolved , That a committee of nine Members of this House be appointed by 
the Speaker to examine into the work now in progress for the improvement 
of the Mississippi River below Cairo, the methods employed in making such im¬ 
provement, the contracts touching the same, and the application of the appro¬ 
priations made by Congress for that purpose; also, all matters pertaining to, 
and the feasibility of, the outlet system for the improvement of said river; also, 
the improvement" made at the mouth of said river, the system of jetties, the 
extent to which the same have facilitated the navigation of the river to the Gulf, 
their permanency, the method now employed in the improvement thereof, and 
into all matters touching said improvement, the methods and effects thereof, and 
contracts touching the same. 

This committee met at Cairo, Ill., on the 14th of November fol¬ 
lowing, and proceeded down the river to the jetties. A great num¬ 
ber of witnesses were examined: their testimony, which was printed 
with the report (H. Rept. 1985, 47th Cong., 2d sess.), covered 429 
pages. On February 24. 1883, Mr. Burrows submitted Ins report 
to the House, which concluded as follows: 

In conclusion, your committee report and recommend— 

First. That the efficacy of the plan determined upon by the Mississippi 
River Commission for the channel improvement of the river is not sufficiently 


34 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


established to warrant its general application without further trial; that such 
works should be restricted to Plum Point and Lake Providence Reaches and 
brought to a state of completion, and that a sufficient sum should be appropri¬ 
ated for the successful prosecution of the work at these two points; and that 
the plan of the commission should not be applied to or continued at any other 
place on the river until the works at these two points are completed and their 
desirability established. 

Second. That the construction and repair of levees is not essential to the 
improvement of the navigation of the Mississippi River, and that Congress 
should make no appropriation therefor. 

Third. That while the outlet system might relieve the river of its flood waters, 
yet your committee are not prepared to recommend it to the favorable consider¬ 
ation of Congress as a method for improving navigation. 

Fourth. That the system of jetties established at the mouth of the river facili¬ 
tates navigation and answers the purpose for which they were constructed. 

There were two minority reports submitted, one signed by Ben¬ 
jamin Butterworth, George C. Hazelton. and William S. Holman. 
Their report opened with this sentence: 

The undersigned concur substantially in the conclusions reached by the ma¬ 
jority except as to the outlet system. 

On this point they submitted an argument in favor of outlets. 
Two other members of the committee, Hon. John K. Thomas and 
Hon. E. John Ellis, submitted another minority report which began 
in these words: 

We agree with the majority in their conclusions with regard to the jetties. 
We agree with the majority in condemning the outlet system as not only wholly 
visionary and futile as a method either of channel improvement or of relief 
from destructive floods, but a system which would multiply the evils and defects 
both of flood and shoal navigation exactly in the ratio of its application, and 
finally ruin the river itself, both as a commercial channel and as a drain. In 
this conclusion we are sustained by the evidence of every engineer who has testi¬ 
fied before the committee, with possibly a single exception, and by the over¬ 
whelming force of the engineering thought of the world. Only two witnesses 
have testified in favor of outlets, and these are not engineers. Moreover, by 
their own testimony, they are personally interested in a joint-stock scheme which 
has for its sole capital the hope that Congress will appropriate money for an 
outlet at Lake Borgne. * * * 

But inasmuch as a minority of the committee have seen proper to present at 
great length views in favor of the outlet system—views, we are forced to say, 
not based upon the opinion of any engineer of any great repute, nor of any who 
testified before this committee—we deem it but proper to submit some reflec¬ 
tions upon the subject. 

Several pages of argument, fortified by copious extracts from the 
testimony, follow. The report then proceeds: 

We concur in the conclusion reached by the majority that the work of the 
Mississippi River Commission should be confined to those points where work 
has been commenced, but we dissent wholly from the tone of their report and 
the process of reasoning by which their conclusions were reached. 

We hold that the testimony taken in any investigation should govern the re¬ 
port. Especially should this be the case where a committee of laymen are 
engaged in investigating any scientific or engineering theory in the course of 
practical execution by scientists and engineers. Eight Members of Congress, 
not one of them boasting scientific acquirement, all of them lawyers, not one of 
them with any practical experience on the Mississippi River, not one of them 
versed in the rudiments of hydraulic engineering, proceed to examine the work 
of a body of engineers who for reputation in their profession are unexcelled by 
any body of engineers in the Union. The eight Congressmen board an unwieldy 
freight boat in the midst of November rains. Her decks and guards are dark¬ 
ened by barrels and boxes. They voyage dowu the muddy current of the Missis¬ 
sippi River 1.000 miles. They stop at three points where work is in progress, 
and spend not exceeding four hours at any one point steaming around lines of 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


35 


work, some above and some below the surface of the river, extending for miles 
up and down the stream, running across chutes and over bars and islands and 
in the shadows of concave bends. Will any sensible man say that the eight 
Congressmen are prepared to make an intelligent report, based upon what they 
saw and learned of their own observation? The thought is folly. 

They must rely upon the testimony of such experts and men of practical expe¬ 
rience as they have called to testify before them, and upon such evidence alone 
can their report be based. And it is because the tone and temper and reasoning 
of the report of the majority is wholly and utterly irresponsive to the testimony, 
in so far as it relates to the work of channel improvement, that we feel bound 
to dissent and to express our views in a separate statement. 

They then proceed through several pages to argue forcefully 
for the levee theory as recommended by the Mississippi River Com¬ 
mission, and conclude as follows: 

In conclusion, we beg to recommend that the legislation asked for in the last 
report of the Mississippi River Commission be enacted. In view of the lateness 
of the session we deem it proper to urge it as an amendment to the river and 
harbor bill. 

We recommend that a sufficient amount be appropriated to continue the works 
at Plum Point, Providence Reach, the Vicksburg, Memphis, New Orleans, and 
Natchez Harbors, and the rectification of the mouths of Red and Atchafalaya 
Rivers. We recommend that an unfettered appropriation be given to the com¬ 
mission for the working out of their plan in its entirety, believing that in their 
knowledge of the vast questions involved, in their devotion to the public weal, 
and in their absolute fidelity to the Government they serve the whole people 
may safely and securely rest. 

In view of the diversity of opinion expressed in the three reports 
and the utter failure of the committee to reach any conclusion to 
which a majority could subscribe, their mission was a failure and 
the fruits of their labors practically nill, except for the very inter¬ 
esting and instructive hearings which accompanied the report. In 
view of the very cursory and limited study which was given to 
the subject, as related by Messrs. Thomas and Ellis in their minority 
report above quoted, this is no matter of surprise. 

It had been currently reported that Gen. A. A. Humphreys, whose 
10 years’ study of the river had resulted in the great report of 
Humphreys and Abbot, was opposed to the plans of the Mississippi 
River Commission, and he was therefore invited before the committee. 
The following extract from his testimony shows how little founda¬ 
tion there was in fact for these rumors: 

The Chairman. Mr. McLane, please ask Gen. Humphreys first whether a sys¬ 
tem of levees is absolutely necessary for the improvement of the navigation 
without regard to the prevention of overflows. 

Mr. McLane. Very well; I will ask him to state whether, in his opinion, a 
system of levees with or without outlets is not indispensable for the improve¬ 
ment of the river from the mouth of the Ohio? 

Gen. Humphreys. Yes, sir; certainly. 

Mr. Reagan. In determining, as you did, the necessity of extending the levees 
from the mouth of the Ohio to the mouth of the Mississippi did you consider 
whether it was practicable or possible to retain the floods of the Mississippi 
River within those levees? 

Gen. Humphreys. Yes; that was the question. The object of constructing 
levees and raising them to certain heights was to confine the river within them; 
otherwise it would be a useless expenditure of money. The great object of 
making these measurements was to determine the question how high the river 
would rise if all the water was kept within its channel, and the observations 
were made because no one had any means of answering that question befoie. 

Mr. Hoar. And did you conclude that it could be done? 

Gen. Humphreys. Yes, sir. 


36 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


Thirty years have come and gone since this committee made its 
report, and all the theories advocated by the several members thereof 
have been subjected to the test of time. The arguments advanced by 
Messrs. Thomas and Ellis in their minority report have all been 
justified by experience, and the wisdom of their recommendation, 
“ that an unfettered appropriation be given to the commission for 
the working out of their plan in its entirety,” has been demonstrated. 

DO LEVEES CAUSE THE BED OF THE RIVER TO FILL? 

In 1890 another great flood came down the river, and the levees, 
in their uncompleted condition, were unable to withstand the pressure, 
and were breached in many places. The disaster from this flood was 
very great. In addition to the destruction of property, much of the 
work theretofore done on the levees was, of course, swept away. The 
flood level was much higher this year, although the volume of water 
in the river was less than it had been in previous extreme floods. 
This was inevitable, of course, because the water which had formerly 
been permitted to spread over vast areas bounded only by the hills 
on either side of the valley was now confined by the levees, and in¬ 
stead of spreading over a valley from 40 to 80 miles wide it was 
forced to pass between embankments only 3 to 5 miles apart. The 
casual observer noted that as the levees rose higher the flood elevation 
was correspondingly higher, and the theory which had been advanced 
many years before, that the construction of levees would cause the bed 
of the river to rise, was again brought forward and urged with great 
persistence. This has always been a very popular though fallacious 
theory. No one is interested in the gauge when the river is low and 
therefore no one looks at it or regards it. There is no danger then. 
But the fact is that the low-water level has not been raised, as would 
be the case had the channel filled. If a quart of water is poured into 
a pint measure it will inevitably overflow, unless the sides of the 
measure are raised. In that event there will be no overflow, but the 
water will stand much higher in the measure. It will not prove 
that the bottom of the measure has been raised, however. There is 
nothing new about this theory, though many of its proponents seem 
to think so. 

A hundred years ago M. de Prony, a French engineer, traveling 
through Italy, in some way got the notion into his head that the Po, 
by reason of the levees along its banks, had silted up its bed, and in an 
essay published on the subject shortly after he returned to France he 
announced this discovery. This was the beginning of the theory. 
Lombardini, a noted Italian engineer, after a most elaborate investi¬ 
gation and study of the Po from its earliest available records, com¬ 
pletely and thoroughly exposed and refuted this error. About 1855, 
or a little later, perhaps, the Abbe H uc traveled extensively in China 
and subsequently wrote a very interesting and entertaining book on 
his travels. In this book he stated that the Yellow River had, by 
reason of the construction of levees along its banks, so filled its bed 
that the bottom of the. river was higher than the adjacent country. 
To this fact he attributed the great disaster of 1853, when that river 
broke through the levees and made a new channel for itself to the 
sea. It is remarkable how many people have heard this story of the 
Yellow River who, of course, never read this pious old father’s book. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 37 


Judge Taylor, of the Mississippi River Commission, in an address 
delivered in New Orleans a number of years ago, said: 

I often wonder how so many people get hold of that idea who have so few 
others. 


To one who has made so thorough an investigation of the subject 
as Judge Taylor, who has drunk so deep at the Pyerian Spring, 
these theorists no doubt do appear thoroughly stupid. The fact is, 
however, that many people who are very far from being stupid, and 
who do have a great many “ other ideas,” and sensible ideas, too, 
have gotten hold of this one, and, curiously enough, when once they 
have gotten it into their heads they hold to it with a tenacity which 
is as unchangeable as it is inexplicable. It is indeed difficult to un¬ 
derstand the psychology of it. There seems to be some subtle and 
mysterious influence by which it reaches the ego. It evidently flat¬ 
ters the vanity of men, and in that way insinuates itself into their 
intellectual favor; but be that as it may, the unfortunate, stubborn 
fact is that having once heard it, no man ever forgets it, and few 
who believe it ever abandon the faith. Tell him a hundred things 
about the Mississippi River and then relate this story; he will forget 
the hundred facts, but he will not only remember this fallacy; lie 
will take pains to impart it to every other man who will listen to 
him discourse upon the subject. 

Gen. Wilson, of the Army Engineer Corps, visited China and made 
a visit to the bellow River to study, if possible, this most unnatural 
phenomenon. In his book, written upon his return, he devotes some 
space to the old abbe’s story, but gave it as his opinion that it was 
wholly inaccurate. He subsequently wrote a letter to Gen. Corn- 
stock, who read it to the Rivers and Harbors Committee in the 
hearings of 1890. Gen. Comstock’s statement so illumines this whole 
subject that it is printed in full elsewhere (p. 172). This hearing 
(1890) is one of the most interesting and instructive ever had on the 
engineering problems of the Mississippi, and its perusal is earnestly 
recommended. (See p. 172.) 

The late Col. Smith S. Leach was universally regarded as one of 
the greatest engineers ever employed on the work of controlling the 
floods of the Mississippi River. He was for 12 years in active charge 
of this great work. In an article contributed to the Manufacturers’ 
Record many years ago. speaking of this hypothesis (I sav hypothesis 
advisedly, because it has never risen to the dignity of theory), he 
said: 


If any proposition more than another is inconsistent with everything that has 
been stated in this paper, it is one which has obtained wide currency, and on 
which opposition to levee building is largely based, that levees cause deposits 
in the channel and thereby raise the bed of the river. The votaries of this doc¬ 
trine ignore the testimony of the Mississippi itself, which is conclusive against 
them, and depend upon an alleged analogy with the Yellow River of China, 
about which no one knows* anything, and with the Po, of which everything that 
is known refutes their hypothesis. 


The only leveed rivers in the world where the bed has silted up 
are those rivers which flow from a high elevation down a steep, in¬ 
clined plain, and suddenly debouche into a level country These are 
silted up, not because they are leveed, but in spite of that tact. I he 
Sacramento River in California is a good illustration. In the early 
davs of California (1849), immediately succeeding the discovery 
of gold the principal activities of the people were directed toward 


38 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVED. 


the mining of gold in the mountains. The process was hydraulic 
mining, which literally tore the mountains to pieces, and in the 
course of years washed the debris down the mountain slopes in 
tremendous quantities. It was discovered, all too late, that this 
particular method of mining would inevitably destroy the naviga¬ 
ble streams. Col. Townsend, in an address delivered at Memphis, 
Tenn., September 26, 1912, said, speaking of this contention: 

The assertion is now admitted to be false on the main rivers of all civilized 
countries which are capable of being studied, but it is still claimed that it is 
true in China and Japan. I recently visited Japan and had an opportunity to 
further investigate the subject. On the larger rivers, like the Osaka, there 
were no evidences of any such action, but in mountain streams which flow 
down steep hillsides and suddenly change their slope when they pass through 
plains, as is the case with a number of streams which empty into Lake Biwa, 
the upper portions of the streams have been scoured out, forming deep gullies, 
and the material thus eroded deposited at the foot of the hills. 

This description fits the situation in the case of the Sacramento 
perfectly. Continuing he stated his opinion: 

My own view of the effect of levees on stream flow is that they tend to re¬ 
move irregularities and make the slope more uniform. * * * They should 

also, to a certain extent, enlarge the river section, but at a rate so low that it 
would be a question of practical importance to those who will inhabit the valley 
in the tweuty-fifth century, rather than those who are tilling it to-day. 

Humphreys and Abbott had investigated this theory 50 years 
before, had traced its genesis and demonstrated its fallacy. The 
commission of engineers appointed m compliance with the act of 
June 22, 1874, “to report a permanent plan for the reclamation of 
the alluvial basin of the Mississippi River,” had reported that “This 
idea is utterly without good foundation either in theory or experi¬ 
ence.” (H. Ex. Doc, 127, 43d Cong., 2d sess.) Every engineer who 
has ever been set to work on the question has broken and shattered 
the old vase, but the scent of the old priest and the French de Prony 
still cling to the fragments. “ I don't know why I love you, but I 
do,” is still the only reply of its votaries. Congress, however, wanted 
a better answer. If the bottom of the river was filling up as fast as 
the levees were made higher, of course, it would be a useless and 
senseless waste of money to continue appropriations for the building 
of levees, and so the Committee on Rivers and Harbors summoned 
before them the most expert engineers in the corps, and called upon 
them for enlightenment and advice on this subject. The hearings 
were full and the fallacy of the contention clearly, and it was hoped 
finally, demonstrated (p. 172). 

HEARINGS OF 1890—CHANGE IN THE LANGUAGE OF THE BILLS. 

The hearings covered a much wider range than this single question. 
The whole problem of flood control and the levee system was thrashed 
over. The relation which the levees sustain to the problem of navi¬ 
gation and the broader though kindred subject of commerce was in¬ 
vestigated. The question of flood control and the relative duties 
and responsibility of the States and the Nation all were discussed, 
argued, and resolved, with the net result that the proviso “ that no 
portion of this appropriation shall be expended to repair or build 
levees for the purpose of reclaiming lands or preventing injury to 
lands or private property by overflow,” which had been carried in all 
previous bills, was thereafter omitted. Three million two hundred 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 39 

thousand dollars was appropriated u for the general improvement of 
the river, for the building of levees, * * * in such manner as in 

their opinion shall best promote the interest of commerce and navi¬ 
gation." This was the bill of September 17, 1890. In the bill of 
1892 this language was changed again to read as follows: 

For the general improvement of the river, for the buildiug of levees, and for 
surveys, including tlie survey from the Head of the Passes to the headwaters 
of the river, in such manner as in their opinion shall best improve navigation 
and promote the interests of commerce at all stages of the river. 

This language has been carried in all succeeding bills. 

THE FLOOD OF 1897 AND THE NELSON REPORT. 

In 1897 another disastrous flood occurred. Though less in its dis¬ 
astrous effects than its predecessors, it nevertheless destroyed much 
property and washed away sections of the still uncompleted levees. 
Following in the wake of every great flood which had deluged the 
valley in all the years since the jurisdiction and responsibility of the 
control of the river passed to the Federal Government by the Louis¬ 
iana Purchase, Congress has ordered some special committee or 
created some special commission “ to investigate and report.” It 
has never heeded, however, except in a small measure, the advice 
contained in any of these reports, but universally, for one reason or 
another, has adhered to the wasteful policy of “ piecemeal ” appro¬ 
priations. The result was always the same; the riparian owners 
could not raise sufficient money to complete the levees to the grade 
and section fixed by the engineers, Congress would not, and the in¬ 
evitable happened. The next great flood would wash away a part of 
the levees, the ultimate cost of a completed system was thereby in¬ 
creased, and the aggregate of property values destroyed grew with 
each crevasse. 

So it happened after the flood of 1897. The Commerce Committee 
of the Senate was authorized and instructed to examine and report— 

First. What are the causes of the disastrous floods in the Missis¬ 
sippi River and its tributaries, and how can such floods be prevented 
or diminished ? 

Second. If such floods are the result to any extent of the destruc¬ 
tion of timber upon or near the headwaters of said river or its tribu¬ 
taries, what measures should be adopted to prevent such destruction, 
and whether reservoirs to hold the water caused by rain or the rapid 
melting of snow on or near said headwaters should be constructed 
to prevent the floods caused by the sudden precipitation of the rain 
or snow water into the streams flowing from the regions where the 
sources of the Mississippi and its tributaries are located ? 

Third. Whether said reservoirs, if their construction should be 
deemed necessary for the purposes before set forth, could not also be 
utilized for the irrigation of arid lands in the vicinity of such reser¬ 
voirs. 

Fourth. Whether the outlet system by which it is proposed to fur¬ 
nish avenues through which the waters of the Mississippi River can 
escape in times of flood is practicable or expedient. 

Fifth. Whether the present system of improving the Mississippi 
and Missouri Rivers, under which it is sought to confine the water 
within the banks of said rivers, by means of levees, and by such 


40 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


levees, together with jetties at different localities, to increase the 
erosive power of the current so as to protect the banks and deepen the 
channel, should be continued. 

Sixth. What has been the effect upon navigation and commerce of 
the jetties at the mouth of the Mississippi River, and what is the 
present condition of said jetties and their probable future? 

Seventh. Whether the Mississippi and Missouri River Commis¬ 
sions should be continued in existence, and, if continued, what amend¬ 
ments should be made to the statutes creating such commissions and 
defining their duties and powers? 

Eighth. What legislation is necessary to prevent the enormous de¬ 
struction of property by floods in the Mississippi River and its 
tributaries, and what amount of money should be appropriated by 
Congress for the establishment and maintenance of systematic im¬ 
provements and safeguards for said purposes? 


THE NELSON COMMITTEE’S REPORT. 


On the 15th of December, 1898, Mr. Nelson, from the Committee 
on Commerce, submitted the report of the committee, which is printed 
as Senate Report No. 1433, Fifty-fifth Congress, third session, mak¬ 
ing a volume of 518 pages, including maps and hearings. The con¬ 
clusions reached by this committee were the same as had been reached 
by all the other committees and commissions which have been charged 
with the responsibility of making a thorough investigation of the 
subject. As to reservoirs the report concludes: 

The scheme is regarded by nearly all engineers and other experts as wholly 
impracticable; in short, your committee can discover no sure or adequate relief 
in reservoirs. 

As to outlets: 

Neither can your committee discover from the evidence or through other 
sources any material relief from the outlet system. 

As to levees: 

From all the evidence taken and considered by your committee, it is evident 
that the basins and bottoms along the Mississippi River exposed to the floods 
of the river can only be protected and preserved from such floods by an ample 
and complete system of levees from Cairo to the Head of the Passes. Crevasses 
and inundations, resulting in extensive loss of life and property, are liable to 
occur during all floods so long as the system is incomplete. The burden of com¬ 
pleting the levee system is too great for local and State authority. Your com¬ 
mittee are of the opinion that the Federal Government should continue, as it 
has since 1882. to aid in the great task of controlling and repressing the floods 
in the river. 

Once again the question which had never been correctly answered 
was knocking at the door of Congress. Once again the truth was set 
before Congress. “ The burden of completing the levee system is too 
great for local and State authority,” and once more the answer 
was, “ Wait.” 

Referring to the flood of 1897, the committee reported that “ the 
flood of 1897 wrought great havoc, especially in the older levees, 
many of which had been defectively and improperly constructed. 
There were 23 breaks in the St, Francis front, 6 in the Yazoo front, 
14 in the White River front, and 4 in the Tensas front, most of 
which occurred from an overtopping of the levees.” The loss to the 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


41 


riparian owners was tremendous, but they by no means abandoned 
hope. Always praying and always believing that Congress would 
some day take up the burden and make it possible for them to re¬ 
claim this vast empire, which would add so much to the wealth and 
welfare of the Nation, they continued to struggle beneath a tax load 
self-imposed, almost, if not quite, unequaled in the history of agri¬ 
cultural activities. The engineers of the commission had gained 
much knowledge and collected most valuable data during the flood 
of 1897, and having resolved and digested it, they were able to de¬ 
clare in their annual report made to Congress the following winter: 

The important fact that the flood waters of the Mississippi River may be 
permanently controlled by a system of levees that can be constructed within a 
limit of expense warranted by the advantages to be gained seems to have 
been fairly demonstrated by the flood of 1897. 

The sundry civil bill approved June 4, 1897, appropriated a little 
more than $2,000,000 as an emergency fund and made it immediately 
available to supplement an equal amount which had been authorized 
in the act of June 8, 1896. This gave the commission approximately 
$5,000,000 for levees and other channel work. The contribution by 
local interests was greater than ever. 

FIRST FLOOD PASSES WITHOUT A CREVASSE. 

The greatest activity ever witnessed on the levees followed, and 
the results were most happy. The great breaches which had been 
made in the levees were closed, the whole line was strengthened, and 
when the commission made their report in 1898 they were able to 
say, after the flood of 1898 had passed down the river: 

This is the first time in the history of the river since the commencement of 
the continuous levee system that a flood reaching the height of 49.8 on the 
gauge at Cairo has been carried to the Gulf without a single break in the 
levees. 

THE FLOOD OF 1903 AND ITS LESSONS. 

For five years the levees successfully held back the floods, but 
in 1903 another great flood came and the levees were again breached. 
The work which had been done, however, demonstrated more clearly 
than ever before that a completed levee system would give im¬ 
munity from floods to the whole valley. In their report of this 
flood, the commission, after discussing it fully in all of its phases, 
conclude with these words: 

The past flood showed more clearly than has any previous one, both the 
importance and the practicability of a complete and efficient levee system. In 
its present condition, incomplete, both as regards extension and dimension, it 
gave substantial protection to three-fourths of the alluvial valley and its 
interests, which under equal flood conditions without levees would have been a 
lake from 20 to 80 miles wide from Cairo to the Gulf. The improvement made 
during the past six years has reduced the number of crevasses between Cairo 
and New Orleans from 38 to 6. Of the area overflowed this year five-eighths 
was the direct result of the backwater from the low lands of the basin and 
overflow through unbuilt parts of projected lines and only three-eighths from 
breaks in the levees, notwithstanding their unfinished condition as regards 
both grade and section. 

Accepting at its face value this assurance of the commission that 
“ the work which had been done, however, demonstrated more clearly 


42 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


than ever before that a completed levee system would give immunity 
from floods to the whole valley,” the riparian owners redoubled their 
efforts to hasten the day that would witness this consummation so 
devoutly to be wished. The years which had elapsed since 1884, 
when Congress first began to make appropriations to assist in the 
building of levees, had marked a most gratifying industrial develop¬ 
ment throughout the entire Delta. There is no bureau of statistics 
maintained in the Mississippi Delta, but the Mississippi River Levee 
Association, which is the official organization and mouthpiece of all 
the levee districts, has, at great expense of time and labor, compiled 
some very interesting facts which show how well the people have 
taken advantage of their opportunities, and demonstrate beyond all 
cavil what the future development of the valley would be if a com¬ 
plete system of flood protection were assured. It has been shown 
(p. 18) that as a result of the floods of 1882, 1883, and 1884 not only 
had all activities and progress in the development of the country 
been suspended, but that both property and hope had been aban¬ 
doned. The following figures given for 1880 therefore really over¬ 
state the development actually existing in 1884. 

INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE* DELTAS. 

In 1880 the population of all the deltas was 445,604; in 1910, 
829,720. In 1880 there were 1,619,721 acres in cultivation. What a 
somber picture that is. Here in the heart of this most marvelously 
fertile and productive valley, with 16,000,000 acres capable of pro¬ 
ducing the greatest crops of the world, at the end of a hundred years 
of struggle and ceaseless warfare against the great Father of Waters, 
less than 2,000,000 acres had been subjected to the will and purposes 
of man. In 1910 there were 3,585,070 acres in cultivation. Farm 
values in 1880 were listed at $50,961,199; in 1910, $174,187,559. The 
value of personal property on these farms in 1880 was $12,776,012; 
in 1910, $50,115,939. In 1880 there were no railroads and never could 
be; in 1910 there were 3,200 miles of railway. In 1880 there was 
one banking institution in all this great valley, located at Helena, 
Ark., and with a capital of $20,000; in 1910 there were 246 banks, 
with a combined capital and surplus of $15,600,000 and with deposits 
of $43,300,000. These figures give probation more strong than proofs 
of Holy Writ that every dollar which had been spent bv the Federal 
Government had been bread cast upon the water and was coming 
back a hundred-fold in contribution to the wealth of the Nation and 
the promotion of the general welfare. Armed with such proofs, still 
clinging to the hope which had sprung eternal in their breasts that 
the day was surely near at hand when Congress would harken to their 
appeals for real justice and set its strong hand to the task, the citi¬ 
zens of the deltas came to Washington in 1904 for another presenta¬ 
tion of the case. Elaborate hearings were had. Men from all parts 
of the country appeared before the committee, showing the truly na¬ 
tional character of the question. Mr. Charles S. Fairchild, of New 
York, ex-Secretary of the Treasury, appeared before the committee. 
His statement is too important, too lucid, too convincing to mar by 
merely quoting an extract. The statement and the cause would both 
suffer in the abbreviation. It is all too short, at any rate. It is 
therefore reproduced in full at page 247. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


43 


That part of Mr. Caldwell’s statement in which he deals with 
the levee problem in its relation to the race question is most inter¬ 
esting and instructive. (See p. 248.) 

The entire hearing in fact is commended to all who are “seek¬ 
ing after light,” with the assurance that its careful study will yield 
ample returns on the time invested. (See p. 241.) 

These gentlemen, representing vast business enterprises in dif¬ 
ferent parts of the country, appeared before the committee and 
urged Congress, in the light of the developments of the past 20 
years, and in view of the urgent recommendations of the Mississippi 
River Commission, which had then devoted 25 years of study to the 
problem, to make the right answer to the question which had so 
long and with such persistency stood knocking at the door of Con¬ 
gress. Sad to relate, the answer was again deferred. 

NINE YEARS OF PEACE AND THEN THE DELUGE. 

Tf Congress had then provided funds requisite to complete the 
levee line, or, rather, a sufficient proportion of the funds so needed— 
because there has never been any request made by the riparian 
owners that they be relieved of their proper part of the burden—the 
frightful disasters of 1912 and 1913, so stupendous in their toll of 
life and property as to shock the sense of the entire Nation, would 
have been averted. As it turned out, no such favorable opportunity 
had ever presented itself for the completion of the work. For nine 
years after the high water of 1903 no disastrous flood came down 
the river. Fortunate as this respite was, blessed as the dwellers in 
the lower valley were in this almost a decade of peace, their lot was 
not entirely unalloyed good fortune. 

Most unfortunately for them, indeed, the conclusion was reached 
that no further assistance was needed for the upbuilding and 
strengthening of the levees, and the allotments for that purpose from 
the finds provided for the commission by Congress grew fine by 
degrees and beautifully less. In 1911 only $130,000 was allotted by 
the commission for levee construction out of the appropriation for 
the river of $2,000,000. 

There was, of course, a rude awakening from this iridescent 
dream. In 1912 and 1913 three floods in two years came down the 
river and overwhelmed the valley. The destruction of life and 
property was, of course, greater than ever before. The commission 
reported after the first flood of 1912 that $41,000,000 in property had 
been actually destroyed by the flood. The loss in human life can not 
be measured. 

For who shall put an estimate upon the value of the souls destroyed by the 
same causes: and who shall gather the tears of the widow and the orphan; the 
bloody sweat of anguished families; and the griefs for loved ones lost, fortunes 
broken, and hopes destroyed, and weigh them in the scale, with a pitiful appro¬ 
priation of money? 

These words are taken from the report of the great river conven¬ 
tion held in Chicago in 1847 to urge upon Congress the needs of the 
Mississippi Valley. How apt they are! 

Congress, aroused by the appaling catastrophe, appropriated 
$4,000,000 for the levees, but $2,000,000 of it was spent in rebuilding 
levees which had been washed away, and all of the money contributed 


44 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


by the levee districts was devoted to the same purpose, while their 
revenues for another year were anticipated to raise money to be spent 
in temporary works in an enormously expensive campaign against 
the flood. (See p. 7.) Later in that session, in the sundry civil bill, 
another appropriation was made of more than a million dollars to 
meet the expenses incurred by the War Department in relief work 
among the sufferers who had been rendered homeless and destitute 
by the ravages of the frightful and cruel waters. The Army officers 
reported that 272,000 people were furnished food and shelter. These 
were people whose all had been swept away by the angry floods 
which had been hurried down upon them from 31 States of the 
Union. The story of this appalling catastrophe can be found in the 
report of Maj. Normoyle, printed as House Document No. 1453, 
Sixtjr-second Congress, third session. 

The people of these deltas had contributed more than $60,000,000 in 
taxes toward the construction and maintenance of their levees, an 
amount far in excess of what was required to construct and maintain 
a levee line strong enough and high enough to withstand any flood that 
ever had or ever could have come down the river under natural con¬ 
ditions; but the wonderful and extensive drainage systems which 
had been constructed throughout the great Middle West by the up-to- 
date scientific and enterprising farmers, who had built that magnifi¬ 
cent civilization, fulfilled in awful verification the prophecy of Ellet: 

The process by which the country above is relieved is that by which the 
country below is ruined. 

DEVELOPMENT OF DRAINAGE AREA. 

The enormous development of the great drainage area of the upper 
valley from 1850 to 1880 has been stated. In round numbers the ad¬ 
vance in farm values increased from $828,000,000 in 1850 to $5,300,- 
000,000 in 1880, resulting in an increase in the flood volume from 
1,475,000 second-feet in 1858 to 1,800,000 second-feet in 1882. The 
progress in all the elements of scientific agriculture and farming 
operations and enterprise which has kept step with the advancing 
civilization of that same territory since 1880 is unmatched in the 
progress of the world in all the tide of time. No one element has 
been so potential in this development as the “ process by which the 
country above is relieved ” of its surplus and surface waters. Now, 
note the figures for 1910, just two years before the last and greatest 
flood. 

Farm values of the 11 States in the upper valley in 1880 were 
$5,317,880,906. These same farm values in 1910 were $20,000,000,000. 
Think of it! Twenty thousand millions! But you can not think of 
it. It is too stupendous for comprehension. One can only read and 
pronounce and marvel. Twenty thousand millions! Now, note the 
volume of the flood. In 1882 it was 1,800,000 second-feet. In 1912 
it was 2,300,000 second-feet. 

We may be pardoned for quoting once more from Ellet’s report of 
1851: 

But in pointing out the direct consequences of the system which now prevails 
to an extent so alarming—of excluding the water from its ancient reservoirs and 
forcing the increased burden down the proper channel of the Mississippi—it is 
not the design to contend against that policy. It would, indeed, be a hopeless 
opposition that would array itself against the countless interests, private and 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


45 


public, which urge these measures forward. The progress of this work is 
irresistible. It has become the adopted policy of Congress, as well as of 
individual States, and is progressing fearfully through the whole area of the 
delta. 

^ hen the three Hoods which came in 1912 and 1913 had written 
their sad story of wreck and ruin in the lower valley, the commission 
was called upon once more “ to investigate and report.” It did, and 
the unbroken monotony of a century still holds through its every line: 

Levees afford the only practicable means of preventing the damages which 
might be caused by floods in the lower Mississippi Valley. They have been 
successfully employed on European rivers, and are the only means of flood 
protection of large rivers that have been tested, or, if tested, have not failed. 
To restrain floods like those of 1912 and 1913 will require in the existing levee 
line about twice the yardage now in place. The estimated cost of such enlarge¬ 
ment is $57,000,000 (p. 5). 

Congress is now being urged to provide this fund in large annual 
appropriations, so that the levees may be completed before another 
great flood. The local interests which have already contributed 
$67,000,000 toward the construction of these levees propose to con¬ 
tribute $15,000,000 more, and are asking that Congress provide the 
balance of the fund necessary. Will it do it? Or will the same 
old fatal, wasteful, Fabian policy still be pursued? Once more the 
old unanswered question stands at the door and knocks: “ Shall the 
lessons of the last flood be forgotten with the burial of its dead? ” 

THE PROCESS BY WHICH THE COUNTRY ABOVE IS RELIEVED IS THE PROCESS 
BY WHICH THE COUNTRY BELOW IS RUINED. 

The Mississippi receives the flood waters from 31 States and its 
drainage basin comprises 41 per cent of the area of the United States. 

It has been frequently stated, and will be repeated, that the drain¬ 
age of the States to the north of these deltas had accelerated the flow 
of the rains which fell upon them, and that in this way had increased 
the burdens of those who live along the lower reaches of the river. 
These statements are not made without authority. In Ellet’s report, 
above referred to, this matter is gone into in great detail. This 
report is quoted again: 

The area of the Mississippi Valley is composed, in the main, of wide extended 
plains and level prairies, on which in the original condition of the country there 
was little or no timber. Over these plains the water which falls on the untilled 
soil is obstructed by the wild grass and brushes, and consequently retained 
upon the flat surface until it is either evaporated or slowly passes off into the 
natural depressions, which convey it through similar impediments 1o the greater 
channels of discharge. 

But as population takes possession of the ground the wild grass is removed 
and the plow is applied to the drainage. The primitive furrows are so directed 
as to let off the surface water and the imperfect drains first opened by the plow 
are subsequently enlarged and made the channels into which the lateral ditches 
are led. The success of the crop depends on the perfection of the drainage, and 
consequently one of the first efforts of every provident farmer, on breaking up 
the sod, is to relieve the surface of his fields of standing water. But the water 
rapidly discharged from these incipient drains meets with impediments in the 
choked-up streams, is led back by fallen timber, and spreads over the bottom 
land. To save these narrow strips of bottom land, which generally afford the 
finest pastures, the industrious farmer promptly removes these obstructions 
from the channel and lets the water off into the country below. 

This process, though in reality hardly well commenced, is yet progressing 
over the valley of the Mississippi at the rate of many millions of acres annually. 

30573°—H. Rep. 300, 63-2, pt 2-4 


46 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


The aim of every proprietor is to drain his own fields and let the water pass 
as rapidly as possible into the creeks and rivulets which are provided by 
nature to convey it away. But the land upon the great tributaries into which 
this water passes is equally valuable, and each proprietor there fortifies himself 
in like manner against the annual and increasing flood. He also drains his 
fields with a view to the more rapid discharge of the surface water, throws up 
embankments across the low places to shut out the flood, and, if the circum¬ 
stances of his situation will justify it, levees in his front and confines the 
swollen water to the actual channel of the stream. 

The immediate consequence of all this is that the water which, in the 
original condition of the country, remained upon the surface of the prairies 
until a portion was evaporated and a portion absorbed by the earth, to be sub¬ 
sequently given out slowly by the springs, is now hurried along hundreds of 
thousands of artificial drains into the great rivers which supply the Mississippi. 

Iii the report of the Mississippi River Commission, of 1883 (p. 
2431), Gen. Comstock, among other things, states— 

That the annual height of the floods in the rivers is now believed to increase 
as the country they drain is cleared up. 

In an address delivered by Col. Townsend, member of the Missis¬ 
sippi River Commission, before the Drainage Congress, at St. Louis, 
May 15, 1913, lie says: 

The subject of land drainage is intimately associated with that of river 
improvement. The cultivation of the soil largely increases the amount of 
sediment entering our streams. The direction of the furrow markedly affects 
the amount of the rain water that flows from its surface, and every ditch or 
subsurface drain promotes a more rapid flow into our rivers during floods and, 
possibly, affects their discharge during low water. 

The Scientific American is not governmental authority, nor is it 
edited by a member of the Engineer Corps of the Army. It is, how¬ 
ever, the great scientific publication of America, and its editorial 
expressions must necessarily carry great weight on all technically 
scientific subjects. Recognizing and indorsing the conclusions ex¬ 
pressed by the engineers of the Army, who have made this subject 
the study of a lifetime, in its issue of April 12, 1913, in its leading 
editorial, this great scientific authority said: 

The floods in the upper watershed of the Ohio, with their tragic accom¬ 
paniment of suffering and widespread ruin, will have carried with them a large 
compensation if they prove to this Nation that the question of the control of 
the Mississippi River and its tributaries is broader than any State or community 
and that it must be faced and mastered by the Nation at large. 

If anyone asks why the Federal Government should be urged to take hold of 
this problem on a national scale and assume full responsibility for the time 
and labor and great cost involved in obtaining complete control of the Mis¬ 
sissippi River, surely it is sufficient to remind him that the drainage basin of 
this great river covers 41 per cent of the total area of the United States. 

Table showing how increase in flood volume has followed 
development of upper valley. 


Value of farm property in 
States between the Mis¬ 
souri and Ohio Rivers. 

Volume of flood dis¬ 
charge of Mississippi 
River below Cairo. 

Y ear. 

Value. 

Y ear. 

Cubic feet per 
second. 

1850 

$827,577,776 

1858 

1,475,000 

1X80 

5,317,880,906 

1882 

1,800,000 

1910 

20,000,000,000 

1912 

2,300,000 














Chapter V. 


SHOULD THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT BUILD THE LEVEES 
ON THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER ? 


Whether Congress should appropriate sufficient money to complete 
the levee system on the Mississippi River is a question which must 
be viewed from two angles. First, whether the control of these floods 
constitutes a problem which ought to be solved either wholly or in 
part by the Federal Government ? Second, whether these levees are 
in the interest of interstate commerce? 

THE QUESTION OF FLOOD CONTROL. 

Let us address ourselves first to the consideration of the question 
of flood control. When the people of the United States, through 
their regularly chosen representatives, assembled in the great na¬ 
tional conventions which represented the three dominant political 
parties of the United States in 1912 they expressed their views in 
platform declarations. The candidates for the Presidency, as well 
as the candidates for Representative in Congress, went before the 
people standing upon these platforms, and so far as those who were 
chosen in the elections which followed are concerned, these platform 
declarations must certainly be persuasive, if not, indeed, conclusive. 
The Democratic Party, which was successful in the election, declared, 
after referring to the devastating floods which just passed down the 
river: 

We hold that the control of the Mississippi River is a national problem. The 
preservation of the depth of its water for the purpose of navigation, the build¬ 
ing of levees to maintain the integrity of its channel, and the prevention of 
overflow of land and its consequent devastation, resulting in the interruption 
of Interstate Commerce, the disorganization of the mail service, and the enor¬ 
mous loss of life and property imposes an obligation which alone can be dis¬ 
charged by the Federal Government. 

The Republican platform declared: 

The Mississippi River is the Nation’s drainage ditch. Its flood waters, 
gathered from 31 States and the Dominion of Canada, constitute an overpower¬ 
ing force which breaks the levees and pours its torrents over many million acres 
of the richest land in the Union, stopping mails, impeding commerce, and caus¬ 
ing great loss of life and property. These floods are national in scope, and the 
disasters they produce seriously affect the general welfare. The States, un¬ 
aided, can not cope with this giant problem. Hence, we believe the Federal 
Government should assume a fair proportion of the burden of its control, so as 
to prevent the disasters from recurring floods. 

The Progressive platform was equally strong. It declared: 

It is a national obligation to develop our rivers, and especially the Mississippi, 
without delay, under a comprehensive plan. Under such a plan the destructive 
floods of the Mississippi would be controlled and land sufficient to support 
millions of people will be reclaimed. 

47 



48 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


In accepting the nomination on the Democratic platform, Mr. 
Wilson said: 

In the case of the Mississippi River, that great central artery of our trade, 
it is plain that the Federal Government must build and maintain the levees 
and keep the great waters in harness for the general use. It is plain, too, that 
vast sums of money must be spent to develop new waterways where trade will 
be most served and transportation most readily cheapened by them. Such 
expenditures are no largess on the part of the Government: they are national 
investments. 

Mr. Taft, a short while before his nomination, in a speech delivered 
before the National Rivers and Harbors Congress, said: 

I am strongly in favor of expending the whole $50,000,000 to save that part of 
the country from floods in a reasonable time and to provide a proper levee 
system. 

Col. Roosevelt, as was well-known, had for a number of years 
urged the Federal Government to build levees on the Mississippi 
River for the sole purpose of protecting the alluvial territory from 
overflow. In fact, no man in public life has spoken more earnestly 
in favor of this great work than he. “ We, the Nation,” he declared, 
u must build the levees and build them better and more scientifically 
than ever before.” 

In the light of these platform declarations and the unequivocal 
statements of the three candidates, it is certainly reasonable to be¬ 
lieve that this House, chosen at that election, all fighting in that 
great political battle, and each under the banner of one of these three 
distinguished gentlemen, will agree to the proposition that the pro¬ 
tection of the Deltas on the lower Mississippi from disastrous floods 
is a burden which Congress must at least share. While these plat¬ 
form declarations may be properly cited to influence the action of 
Congress upon the subject, the duty nevertheless devolves upon the 
proponents of all legislation to do something more. Before favor¬ 
able action is taken the judgment of Congress should be convinced, 
while the citation of platform declarations can do no more than 
persuade its will. 

Not a Question of Reclamation. 

It is not a question of reclamation; that is to say, the advocates 
of Federal control of these floods are not asking that Congress ap¬ 
propriate any money for the reclamation of these overflowed lands. 
What the people in the Deltas ask for is an opportunity to reclaim 
these lands themselves. This is clearly stated by Senator Percy in his 
statement which appears at pages 74 and 75 of the recent hearings. 

Abraham Lincoln once declared that “ The driving of a pirate 
from the track of commerce in the broad ocean and "the removing 
of a snag from its more narrow path in the Mississippi River can 
not, I think, be distinguished in principal. Each is done to save life 
and property, and to use the waterways for the purposes of promot¬ 
ing commerce. The most general object I can think of would be the 
improvement of the Mississippi River and is tributaries.” The 
people in the Mississippi Deltas are urging Congress to drive this 
merciless pirate from the track of commerce and prevent his ruth¬ 
less destruction of their homes and properties in order that they may 
reclaim these fertile lands, to the end that they may become the 
homes of millions of American citizens. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


49 


Another illustration to personify the river was made by Senator 
Percy when he likened it to the savage Indians who prevented the 
pioneers in all the States in the early days from engaging in and 
prosecuting their several pursuits of happiness. “When you drove 
the Indians out of the State of Illinois did the Federal Government 
by that act convert the State of Illinois into a garden? No. It 
simply said to the men who had the brawn and grit and courage 
to go there, that you can go there and make a living for yourselves, 
if you have got the manhood to do it, unmolested by hostile tribes; 
in like manner these people from the Valley of the Mississippi ask 
for one thing, and that is, the opportunity to go there and subdue the 
wilderness unmolested by the hostile waters that belong to this Na¬ 
tion.” It is a mistake, then, to assume that Congress is being asked 
to engage in any reclamation work. All that is asked is that Congress 
regulate the flow of the waters which have been precipitated abnor¬ 
mally and unnaturally upon the lower regions of the river by the 
reclamation which has been progressing throughout the States above 
for the past half century. Unless Congress does lend a helping hand 
these people will never be able to reclaim this vast wilderness and 
subject it to the uses and purposes of civilization. There is no 
sort of question as to this. It has been shown (p. 18) that when 
left to their own resources more than one-half of the land protected, 
or which could be protected, by the levees was actually taxed out of 
the possession of the owners, who had gone into that wilderness and 
waged an unequal and at last unsuccessful warfare against this 
mighty destroyer. 


Local Contributions. 

The theory upon which the argument is predicated that the land 
owners alone should pay the expense of building the levees is that 
they so greatly enhance the value of the protected land. There are 
several answers to this argument. In the first place it has been ascer¬ 
tained and declared by the Mississippi River Commission, composed 
of some of the most eminent engineers in the world, that levees 
should be constructed along the banks of the river as works in the 
interest of navigation, without any reference whatever to the pro¬ 
tection of alluvial lands from overflow. This point was made per¬ 
fectly clear by the testimony of the engineers who appeared before 
the committee and whose statements are printed in the hearings of 
1890. The following colloquy between Senator Gibson and Lieut. 
Col. Suter. of the Engineer Corps of the Army, for many years a 
member of the Mississippi River Commission, is pertinent at this 
point: 

Senator Gibson. You stated a moment ago, in reply to a question by the 
chairman, that if you were improving the Mississippi River, even if it were 
running through a wilderness, if the country through which it ran were not 
peopled, you would still build levees on the banks? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Yes, sir. 

Senator Gibson. Why do you hold that opinion? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Because I consider that the improvement of the stream 
for navigable purposes without it is impossible. 

The situation, then, is this: It is impossible to improve the stream 
for navigation without levees. This is the Government’s interest. It 


50 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


is impossible to reclaim the alluvial lands without levees; this is the 
riparian owners’ interest. It may well be insisted, therefore, that 
the duty of the Federal Government to build levees which inciden¬ 
tally protect the lands behind them is just as imperative as is the duty 
of the riparian owner to build the levees which incidentally improve 
the river in front of them. Their interest in the levees is common; 
the burden of their construction should be common. It is not true, 
however, that the mere construction of levees causes any such en¬ 
hancement of land values as is frequently asserted. Driving the 
pirate from the sea made commerce possible; driving the Indians 
from the frontiers made the pursuits of the pioneer possible; with 
holding the floods of the Mississippi River makes the development of 
the alluvial deltas possible. After the levees are built the wilderness 
will no doubt be swept away by the activities of those who subdue 
it and transform it into fertile and productive fields, but the great in¬ 
crease in land values will only come as the trees are felled, as the 
logs and underbrush are removed, as houses are built, as ditches 
are dug; in short, as the wilderness is transformed into the farm and 
the home. The fact is developed in the hearings that there are 
16,000,000 acres which can be reclaimed and put into profitable cul¬ 
tivation if the floods of the Mississippi are kept off of it. These 
are not low, marshy swamps, as it is frequently supposed. There 
are 20,000,000 acres in the deltas which can be protected from over¬ 
flow by a complete system of levees such as is contemplated. Four 
million of these can not be reclaimed by levees built along the Mis¬ 
sissippi, but 16,000,000 are kept from cultivation by the floods which 
come down the Mississippi River so frequently as to render them 
untillable. Three and one-half million of these acres, in round num¬ 
bers, are now in cultivation; twelve and one-half million would be 
put in cultivation but for these floods. It is developed in the hear¬ 
ings that these cultivated acres will not now sell for $50 an acre as 
an average on the market; and that the uncultivated lands which are 
cut over (as nearly all of them are) are probably worth $5 an acre. 
It is further shown by the hearings that the average cost of putting 
an acre of wild land into a high state of cultivation with all the nec¬ 
essary improvements which are required by the present-day civiliza¬ 
tion is $50 an acre. 


UNEARNED INCREMENT. 

It is difficult to conceive of any very large expenditure of public 
funds in the prosecution or the development of any governmental 
activity which would not carry with it some especial benefit, some 
particular advantage to a few which would not be participated in by 
the average citizen. Take, for instance, the appropriations for the 
Army and Navy. No one will seriously deny that there are some 
particular interests in the country which are benefited especially, and 
far beyond the average citizen by these expenditures. Was a battle¬ 
ship ever constructed, was a public building ever erected, was any 
river or harbor ever improved by the Government without neces¬ 
sarily and very properly carrying with it some especial advantage? 
I mean by especial advantage simply that some particular profit ac¬ 
crued to a few by reason of their employment, their trade, the loca¬ 
tion of their property, or something of that sort. This so-called 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 51 

unearned increment is always present. But to be more direct, to 
make the analogy more apt: The public domain was disposed of at 
the nominal figure of $1.25 an acre. This is not because anybody 
believed that to be the real market value of the property, but because 
Congress knew, as did everybody else, that it was vastly to the ad¬ 
vantage and best interest of the Government to have the public do¬ 
main peopled by home builders. If every foot of land m the United 
States belonged to the Federal Government, it would be infinitely 
poorer than it is to-day, as the result of the very wise statesmanship 
and far-sighted policy which has passed title to the public domain 
into our private citizens. The Nation is strong, the Nation is great, 
the Nation is powerful, the Nation is rich, as the citizens are pros¬ 
perous, and enterprising, and happy, and patriotic. The land in 
the far West—that is, what was the far West in those days—was sold 
by the Government for $1.25 per acre, or preempted by the home¬ 
steader under our very wise land laws; the great railroads were 
built by the Government, practically, and value given to lands which 
had none, and to those which had some value was added an increase 
of many fold. It was not the policy of the Government, however, 
to raise the selling price at which these public lands might be acquired 
by the citizen. To be more specific, if agricultural lands in Alaska 
are worth $1.25 per acre and by the expenditure of millions of dol¬ 
lars in the construction of railroads by the Government those lands 
take on additional value and become in their unimproved condition 
worth $5 per acre, is it proposed or contemplated that the Gov¬ 
ernment should thereupon advance the price from $1.25 to $5 if 
settlers desire to acquire them; and if not, is this not a clear dona¬ 
tion to the purchaser of $3.75 per acre? Yet there is no one who 
would advocate the policy of advancing the price of our public 
lands to those who wish to enter them and build homes upon them, 
simply because by reason of some Government railroad or some 
privately owned railroad, or for any other reason, the actual market 
value of the lands had materially advanced. If by this expenditure 
of $3 an acre these Delta lands can be made habitable and rescued 
from the jungle and converted into productive farms, what difference 
is there in piinciple whether the Government has brought about 
this happy result by the appropriation of $3 an acre for levee con¬ 
struction, and thereby enhanced the value of the lands in private 
ownership, or when, for any reason, public land which is worth $4.25 
an acre is sold to private individuals by the Government for $1.25, 
$3 less than its real value? 

In one instance the Government expends $3, which it has collected; 
in the other instance it fails to collect $3, which it could collect. In 
both instances the citizen is encouraged to become a home builder. 

Magnitude of the Area Protected. 

The total area of these alluvial deltas which will be protected is 
about 25,000 square miles. It is difficult to comprehend the full 
meaning of big figures without stating their relative significance. 
Twenty-five thousand square miles is about the combined area of 
Delaware, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts; 
it is larger by one-third than the two States of New Hampshire and 
Vermont ; it is almost as large as the great State of Maine or South 


52 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RTVEIL 


Carolina, and, in fact, larger than West Virginia. It is equal to the 
combined Kingdoms of Belgium and Denmark; larger than Greece 
and Servia, and about the size of the Netherlands and Switzerland 
combined. If as an original proposition this great fertile valley, 
peopled as it is with our own flesh and blood, men inspired by the 
same hopes and traditions, and bound together by the teachings of a 
common history and a common purpose, all looking to “ one God, one 
law, one element, and one far-off divine event to which the whole 
creation moves ”■—if, we repeat, it were possible to buy from some 
alien sovereign this great estate so peopled and so blessed by the Giver 
of all things good, would we hesitate to bring it beneath the benefi¬ 
cent light of our stars? 

If Maryland or Massachusetts or any other State were threatened 
by destruction from any source, tidal wave, or what not, and we could 
avert that disaster, who w T ould quibble about the cost ? 

“ Bender ” Cotton. 

This territory produces a great variety of staple agricultural prod¬ 
ucts; that is to say, agricultural products which form a considerable 
proportion of our export trade as well as a material part of our in¬ 
ternal commerce. It is particularly adapted to the growing of the 
higher grades of cotton, what is known to the cotton trade as “ Ben¬ 
der ” cotton. This cotton is grown nowhere else in the world except 
in the valley of the Nile, from which we imported last year 110,000,- 
000 pounds, at a cost of approximately 20 cents per pound. England, 
Germany, Russia, and in fact nearly all the countries of Europe are 
spending vast sums in an attempt to acquire and develop cotton- 
producing territory within their colonial possessions. Since England 
assumed suzerainty over Egypt many million pounds sterling have 
been voted for the extension of reclamation projects on the Nile. 
Within the past few months $15,000,000 have been appropriated by 
the British Parliament for the purpose of further experimenting in 
the culture of cotton in the Soudan in the hope of eventually making 
the English spinner independent of the American cotton grower. 

Balance of Trade. 

Our exports of grain are declining. Some of our statesmen and 
far-seeing economists believe that within a few decades our exports 
of foodstuffs will cease. 

It is estimated by those who have appeared before the committee 
at the recent hearings, and in whose accuracy and for whose judg¬ 
ment the committee has greatest respect, that if these twelve and 
one-half million acres were planted to cotton they could reasonably 
be depended upon to produce annually some $700,000,000 of this, 
the most universally required fabric for the clothing of mankind 
throughout the world. If we can hold our own in the matter of 
our foreign commerce, this one item would turn the current of gold 
to our shores in the balance of trade with the world. It would open 
an opportunity for a million American farmers to become home 
builders. It would be the most complete answer; it would furnish 
the most perfect and tempting countercall to the alluring invita¬ 
tion which is yearly inducing many thousands of American farmers 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


53 


t° answer the call of the North.’ Neither Alberta nor Saskatche¬ 
wan otter fields that are as fertile in a climate that is as inviting. 
It is estimated by those who have appeared before the committee, 
and whose statements are printed in the hearings for the perusal 
and enlightment of the House, that if this area, these 16,000,000 
acres, were planted to cotton and properly and intelligently, though 
not intensively, cultivated, they would yield a crop of cotton larger 
than this country has ever produced. 

Mr. Bush, president of the Missouri Pacific and Iron Mountain 
Railroads, by which token we may know him to be one of the great 
business geniuses of our country, among other things said: 

Think wlmt an impetus would be given to trade, industry, and immigration 
by such an addition yearly to the wealth of the country to be circulated 
throughout all the arteries of commerce in the land. This vast sum annually 
would be an enormous accession to our Nation’s Treasury, as against an annual 
comparatively paltry cost for protection of $2,400,000. which would be the 
interest charge at 4 per cent on the $60,000,000 required to accomplish the work 
Cotton consumption is increasing more rapidly than is the supply, and if the 
land available for its growth is limited, it behooves this country to utilize to 
the fullest extent all such lands within her domain. 

Shall the Deltas Revert to the Jungle? 

The question is not simply “ shall the Federal Government build 
these levees and control these floods, or shall it be done by local 
interest?” The only question presented is, shall the Federal Govern¬ 
ment do it, or shall the river be permitted to retake and devote to 
utter destruction and perpetual devastation this magnificient empire, 
so worthy the ambition of a prince ? 

I do not hesitate to say to this committee, and I have no uncertainty about 
the correctness of the statement, that if the word went back to the Mississippi 
Valley from this committee that the Federal Government had found this prob¬ 
lem either too great or outside of its scope and had said, “ upon your own efforts 
you in the valley must rely for your salvation,” not only would the potential 
development be destroyed, but that country, over 70 per cent of it, within 10 
years would revert to the jungle; civilization there would be blotted out, pros¬ 
perity would be destroyed. This is not a conjecture; we have tried it. 

So declared Senator Percy to your committee, and no man who 
knows this great man’s character as a public servant, as a Sena- 
ator, as a lawyer in the best sense of that word, as a private citizen 
in whom are so well mixed the elements that go to make the man, 
will regard lightly his statement. 

Of the 16,000,000 acres, as has been already shown, only 3,500,000 
are in cultivation, and these, of course, have produced the revenue 
which enabled the levee districts to expend the $67,000,000 in the 
construction of levees heretofore. Each district is heavily bonded; 
interest charges must be met; it is not possible for them to raise more 
than the $3,000,000 annually, which it is provided they shall contrib¬ 
ute toward the further completion of the system. This amount 
was not arrived at by haphazard guesswork. When those most 
interested in this legislation were conferring through their represen¬ 
tatives in the preparation of a bill to be presented to Congress at 
this session, a careful, diligent, and earnest and searching inquiry 
was made into all their sources of revenue with a view to ascertain¬ 
ing the maximum sum which they could possibly raise. 


54 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


This extract from the hearings will illumine this point: 

Senator Percy. About the expense to which these districts can contribute, 
about whether theirs is a fair burden or not, it is not conjectural at all. The 
burden proposed is just as great a burden as they can bear. There is not any 
way they could raise a greater amount by taxation, only with the knowledge 
that the Government was going to take hold of these levees, and with the credit 
thereby given will then be able to raise the contribution provided under this bill. 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. When we had a conference of all those who 
were interested and contributed to the drawing of this bill that, in fact, was 
exactly what we discussed when we determined how much contribution to ask, 
was it not? 

Senator Percy. Absolutely. 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. Plow much can we squeeze out of these dis¬ 
tricts? 

Senator Percy. And the only criticism that is heard along the Mississippi 
River to the bill from some quarters is that if it passes, what good will it do 
us? We will never be able to raise our pro rata. 

Mr. Taylor. Is this pro rata about on the lines of the familiar term which 
the railroads use, “ What the traffic will bear”? 

Senator Percy. Just what the traffic will bear; just what the weary taxpayer 
can put up. 

If the policy of watchful waiting which has heretofore character¬ 
ized congressional treatment of this subject is to be further pursued, 
the ability of local interests to contribute their proper, or rather their 
required, proportion will be lessened. Every flood that breaks the 
uncompleted levee line works frightful havoc, and these levee dis¬ 
tricts, which are to be our allies in this great work, will be less and 
less able to furnish their share of the sinews of war as these floods 
recur. The destruction of property, according to the hearings and 
the official reports of the Mississippi River Commission, by the floods 
of 1912 and 1913, reached the appalling total of $50,000,000. As the 
levees grow higher, as they must grow, and the population increases, 
as it must increase, every return of these recurring disasters will be 
marked by an increasingly heavy toll both of property and of life. 

Speaking of the necessity of systematic cooperation under the com¬ 
mand of a single board and noting the utter failure of the unaided 
fight against the “ personified enemy,” the Warren report of 1875 
stated that, “ The river has no respect for State boundaries and 
deluges Arkansas through breaks in the levees of Missouri, and over¬ 
flows Louisiana by floods passing across the Arkansas line.” How 
difficult it is to find words which more clearly set out the truly 
national character of the problem. 

Burden Borne by the Poor People. 

It is suggested sometimes that the planters owning these valuable 
plantations are the ones who make the profits off of the protected 
lands and the ones who suffer the losses, and that it is not the business 
of the Federal Government to spend the people’s money to guarantee 
or insure those who are thus engaged against loss. As a matter of 
fact, these large planters are by no means the only ones whose losses 
make up the enormous totals heretofore suggested. There are many 
thousand small farmers who do not own their land, but who have, 
by dint of hard work and industry and frugality, accumulated the 
necessary equipment in farming implements, teams, live stock, etc., 
whose loss is relatively very much greater than the loss suffered by 
the landowners. Hon. John M. Parker, of New Orleans, in a state- 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 55 

ment before the Commerce Committee of the Senate in 1912, related 
that on his plantation 96 mules were drowned in a single crevasse, 
most of them belonging to tenants on his property. One man owned 
six mules, with the proportionate number of cows and other live stock 
and farming equipment, and he lost everything; all the savings of a 
lifetime were swept away by the rushing waters through a single 
crevasse within a few hours after the break. This is not an exception 
but a type. These people pay their proportionate part of taxes; they 
have, as stated before, already contributed more money than was 
necessary to build and maintain a levee line high enough and strong 
enough to have withstood any flood that ever would come down the 
river but for the marvelous development of the great drainage area 
to the north of them, 31 States and 41 per cent of the drainage of the 
United States. They built their levees strong enough, but the in¬ 
creased volume of water gathered hastily by virtue of the improved 
drainage systems in these great States to the north was precipitated 
upon them with such fury that it tore down the banks of the river 
upon which the levees are constructed and tumbled them into the 
flood. It is the testimony of the xYrmy engineers that a large part 
of the money spent by the States in the construction of levees would 
have been saved but for this caving caused by the accelerated currents 
of the river. To be exact, I quote the statement of Col. Leach: 

I may say, generally, with regard to the history of the levee system, that over 
three-fourths, probably, of the entire sum of money expended by the States in 
the last 10 or 15 years in the construction of levees would have been saved if the 
United States had prevented the banks from caving. 

These people have done all that could be, and very much more than 
should have been, required of them. Mr. Bush in his remarks before 
the committee paid the following very eloquent tribute to the people 
of the lower valley: 

In song and story have been told the deeds of men who caused the great 
American desert to flee before them and become a vagabond and fugitive on the 
face of the earth, but their deeds are no more heroic, their accomplishments no 
greater, than the valiant people of the Southland who, undismayed by what 
seemed to be insurmountable difficulties, have pressed ever onward in their 
efforts to save those lands from the ravages of the Mississippi River. They 
have conducted a national campaign; they have performed their part well, but 
this great Nation of ours ought not longer hesitate, but hasten to their rescue 
and do the governmental work which, under the Constitution of th.e country, 
devolves upon it. 


Chapter VI. 

THE QUESTION OF INTERSTATE COMMERCE. 


The second inquiry is whether these levees are in the interest of 
interstate commerce. 

The Supreme Court of the United States (18 Howard, 421) de¬ 
clared that “ The power of Congress to regulate commerce includes 
the regulation of intercourse and navigation.” 

Let us inquire first into the relation which levees and revetments 
sustain to the question of navigation. 

Levees as an Aid to Navigation. 

Bernard and Totten in their report on the Mississippi River ad¬ 
vising the construction of levees solely in the interest of navigation, 
and with no reference whatever to the protection of the Delta lands 
from overflow, said in 1822 (H. Doc., vol. 3, No. 35, p. 22; 17th Cong., 
2d sess.): 

We shall close this report by pointing out another species of hazard which 
such boats as are not easily and promptly managed must encounter. 

At the time of high water currents of excessive velocity set directly from 
the river over the banks toward the interior; if a boat gets within the draft 
of one of these currents it is only with great effort and labor that it can hope 
to regain the channel; they are often drawn in by them and dashed to pieces 
against the first obstacle. Diking the river along its banks can only prevent 
these lateral currents, and time alone can produce this result. 

Capt. Kingman relates an instance which corroborates this state¬ 
ment of Bernard and Totten as late as 1890 (p. 226). 

The improvement of the low-er Mississippi which has absorbed 
the appropriations made by Congress since the creation of the Missis¬ 
sippi River Commission are of a double character. A part of the 
money has been spent in the construction of levees which the com¬ 
mission in their report of 1882 declared, when judiciously erected 
under the system recommended by them, “ would produce a maxi¬ 
mum effect in channel improvement at a minimum of cost.” 

Prof. Henry Mitchell, a member of the commission, in a separate 
report said: 

The levee is a useful auxiliary to channel improvement as now located, and 
if relocated with due regard to the special office of river improvement would 
he of decided benefit. 

Again, in their report of 1884, the commission said: 

We therefore conclude that levees, such as have been herein described, are, 
in connection with an equalization of width and the prevention of caving, an 
important part of any general and systematic plan for the improvement of the 
navigation and the prevention of destructive floods. 

5G 



FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


57 


One of the best illustrations of the effect of levees in improving 
the navigable depth of the river is at what is called Plum Point 
Reach above Memphis. The following extract from a statement by 
Col. Leach, of the United States Corps of Engineers, explains this 
very clearly: 

The commission in carrying out the work in the early years at Plum Point 
had not provided for any levees. In a debate in the Senate on one of the river 
and harbor bills the point was made by a Senator that the commission was 
professing to make an experimental application of their system at Plum Point 
Reach, and a part of their plan was a levee. That year an allotment was made 
and a levee built on the Tennessee side of the reach. The next year an allot¬ 
ment was made for levees on the Arkansas side and those levees were built. A 
party was engaged all the time in making surveys. The surveys made after the 
construction of the second line of levees and before the first flood, and again 
after the first flood, showed that the high bars in the regulated or deepened 
channel of about 3,500 feet width had had their tops scalped off 8 feet uni¬ 
formly. Nothing of the kind had ever occurred before, and in the two crossings 
under control and under improvement the maximum depths had increased in 
one case 1 foot and in another case 2 feet, and they have so remained to this 
time. 

The following statement of Lieut. Col. Suter, a part of which has 
already been quoted elsewhere, is to the same effect: 

Senator Gibson. You stated a moment ago, in reply to a question by the 
chairman, that if you were improving the Mississippi River, even if it were 
running through a wilderness, if the country through which it ran was not 
peopled you would still build levees on the banks. 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Yes, sir. 

Senator Gibson. Why do you hold that opinion? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Because I consider that the improvement of the stream for 
navigable purposes without it is impossible. 

The Chairman. Why? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. I think you have got to retain control over the whole 
volume of water. The discharge which passes within the banks is less than 
half of the flood discharge of the river, and the low-water discharge is only 
about one-tenth of that which passes within the banks, about one-twentieth of 
the total discharge, and any works that you can put in to control the low-water 
flow on a stream like the Mississippi are liable to be utterly destroyed and 
rendered nugatory by this vastly larger volume of water which passes down 
the river during flood stages. At this season of the year the cut-offs occur, which 
will upset any plan of improvement, because they change entirely the regimen 
of the river, its course, its slopes, and everything about it. 

Again, the water, being over the works and everything else, has a chance to 
develop new channels precisely where you do not want them to occur. A still 
further effect is produced where the levees are down; the water that goes over 
the banks keeps going out and coming back again. Whenever it makes its ap¬ 
pearance in the river it acts like a tributary. It produces entirely new phases, 
just as any tributary will. Sometimes it entirely reverses the conditions of 
flow. The influence that levees exert under these heads I believe I have stated 
as conservative. They prevent the river from doing damage to the works we 
put in to improve the low-water discharge of the stream. 

The Chairman. If there was no question about protecting the land, and you 
were simply improving the Mississippi River for navigation, would you have 
built the levees that are now built? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Yes, sir. 

This opinion of Col. Suter was distinctly concurred in by the 
present Chief of Engineers, Gen. Kingman, who at the time held 
the rank of captain. 

The record of the hearings of 1890 is quoted: 

The Chairman. Suppose you drop all considerations of overflows and regard 
navigation alone, how then? 

Capt. Kingman. I should consider that the levee is a very important means 
of improving navigation, and I can give an instance. The Morganza crevasse 


58 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


was caused by a break that occurred in 1874. It remained open as a crevasse 
practically until closed in the winter of 1886 and 1887, a period of about 12 
years. It has a deep bend there and plenty of water, and there had been no 
trouble with the navigation until after the crevasse was formed. After the 
crevasse occurred the navigation became worse and worse, and steamboat men 
told me they hated to run that bend at night, particularly in low water, when 
the water was running out. When the water was running out there would 
seem to be danger of being drawn into the crevasse. 

Such was the danger to navigation in times of flood which would 
be eliminated by the construction and maintenance of the levee line. 

Continuing he illustrated how another danger to navigation in 
times of low water was also obviated by the maintenance of the levee. 

The steamboat men dreaded it at low water, because the sand bar, or tongue 
of land opposite this bend, had extended so far over into the bend that there 
was hardly room enough for two large steamboats to pass there. The crevasse 
was closed jointly by the commission and by the State in the winter of 18S6 
and 1S87. Since then the navigation has steadily improved, until now it is as 
good as it ever was. The current is quite regular. There is ample room now, 
and steamboat men have spoken to me repeatedly this year about the great 
improvement which has taken place in Morganza Bend since the crevasse has 
been closed. There is an actual case where the building of a levee made bad 
navigation good. 

With these citations taken from the best-informed sources of in¬ 
formation in the world there would be ample justification to conclude 
here with quod erat demonstrandum. 

C. H. West, one of the ablest engineers connected with the improve¬ 
ment of the Mississippi River and at present one of the civilian mem¬ 
bers of the Mississippi River Commission, recently said: 

My own conclusions, after many years of careful study and observation, are 
that a levee system is a useful auxiliary to channel improvement, but the full 
effect in that direction can not be expected until after the system has been made 
continuous and the embankments of sufficient height and strength to confine the 
highest floods. 

******* 

With revetment to stop caving and giving fixation to the river banks and the 
levee system that will confine the floods, there would soon follow a.deepening 
of the bed of the river, and in consequence of its greater carrying capacity a 
lowering of the flood plain itself could be expected; the final result being deep¬ 
water navigation throughout the entire year as well as secure protection of the 
valley on either side of the river from floods. 

These are statements of engineers, both civil and military, who 
have devoted many years to the study of the problems presented by 
the Mississippi River, and no layman will arrogate to himself assur¬ 
ance to gainsay their conclusions. 

SAND BARS—CAUSE AND EFFECT. 

When the Mississippi River Commission began its work there were 
many places on the river below Cairo where the depth was 8 feet 
and less. These serious obstructions to the proper navigation of the 
river had been a menace to its commerce from the earliest date. The 
greatest danger to navigation occasioned by these bars is caused by 
snags which are arrested in their progress down the river and held 
in place by these bars. 

The Secretary of the Treasury many years ago reported that from 
1838 to 1838 40 steamboats were snagged and sunk on the Mississippi 
River whose value was placed at $640,000, This loss increased an¬ 
nually. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


59 


Mr. Calhoun, in 1846, in his report to tne Senate, heretofore quoted 
(p. 22), said: 

Tlie annual aggregate loss of boats navigating the Mississippi and its waters 
at the present time is 107 from all causes. The total loss annually, $2,000,000. 
In addition the loss of life occasioned by sinking boats was very great. 

Reference has heretofore been made to a national convention held 
in the cit}^ of Chicago in 1847 to consider the commerce and naviga¬ 
tion of the valley of the Missisippi. The delegates from the city of 
St. Louis prepared a most interesting and instructive report which 
was printed as a part of the proceedings of that convention. Re¬ 
ferring to “ this fat and fertile valley ” of the Mississippi, its extent 
and certain development was set forth most graphically. “ The Crea¬ 
tor of the universe.” the report continues, “ has nowhere on the face 
of the earth spread more lavishly the means of human prosperity 
or stamped more legibly the lineaments of beautiful and convenient 
adaptation to the wants and necessities of mankind. Visit it not 
with the evils of bad government; obstruct not the hand of improve¬ 
ment within it; stay not the tide of population pouring in upon its 
bosom, and let its broad acres receive that proportion of population 
which vexes the soil of the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Boun¬ 
tiful Giver of this great and good gift will smile from heaven upon 
a happy family of more than 275,000,000 of human beings.” 

Referring to snags and bars, the report continues: 

These obstructions are the heaviest drawbacks upon the commerce of the 
Mississippi Valley, inflicting annually an extensive destruction of the boats 
and cargoes and a frightful loss of human life. 

The conditions set out so graphically and in such detail in this 
early report continued to handicap the commerce of the river in 
an increasing measure as the tide of immigration and the develop¬ 
ment of the valley proceeded. 

With the advent of railroads which parallel the river and the 
handicaps to navigation above described adding to the dangers of 
commerce on the river, it is no wonder that the steamboats grad¬ 
ually disappeared or that the tonnage borne on the river grew grad¬ 
ually and annually less. In 1912 it is given as something more than 
4,000,000 tons. The Mississippi River Commission, upon its creation, 
at once set about to devise a means by which these sand bars could be 
removed and the channel of the river so deepened as to give “ease 
and safety to the navigation thereof.” As quoted above, the experi¬ 
ment of building levees on both sides of the river, so as to confine 
its flood waters to the channel, had proven entirely successful at 
Plum Point reach, but as the floods thus confined rose higher and 
increased in volume the banks of the river were eroded, and the 
levees thus constructed were tumbled into the river. 

Caving Banks. 

The extent of this caving almost passes belief. The annual amount 
of the earth thus caved into the river is sufficient, if it could be so 
congested, to fill the river to the top of its banks for a distance of 
80 miles. Mr. C. H. West, a few years ago in his report to the 
lower Yazoo district, of which he was chief engineer at that time, 
stated that of 189 miles, which v*ns the length of his levee line, 172 
m il es __ a bout 90 per cent—had been abandoned on account of caving 


GO 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI FIVER. 


banks within 25 years. The effect of this caving is most disastrous 
to the proper regimen of the channel. This erosion takes place 
habitually along the concave banks in the bends of the river and is 
deposited a few miles below, thus forming the bars which had proven 
so destructive to the commerce, as # heretofore related. The same 
condition obtained along the reaches of the Missouri River and to 
such an extent that steamboat traffic was literally driven off of that 
river. 

Bank Revetment. 

The commission set about then to devise some means by which 
this erosion could be prevented and within such limits of cost as 
would be reasonably economical. The plan adopted has proven ab¬ 
solutely successful. Willow mattresses are woven together and held 
by wires and sunk below the low-water level so that they cover snugly 
the bank of the river for two or three hundred feet from the low- 
water level out toward the center of the stream. 

A very full discussion of the efficacy of levees in improving the 
channel depths of the river appears in the report of the Mississippi 
River Commission for 1893, by Gen. Comstock, Col. Suter, and Prof. 
Whiting, and in the report of Lieut. Col. Amos Stickney in the report 
of the commission for 1896. The last-mentioned report states that 
the building of levees without bank protection may be considered 
as only temporary work, and, further, that nearly every yard of 
these costly structures would sooner or later have to be rebuilt if 
the river were permitted to wander back and forth in its valley, 
annually carrying off hundreds of acres of land, tearing down levees, 
and filling up its old bed, thus continually adding to the obstructions 
to navigation and impeding the flow of floods. 

In 1908 the Mississippi River Commission, in their annual report, 
state: 

There is another consideration, not of the greatest weight, perhaps, hut one 
which, in the opinion of the commission, is worthy to be taken into account. 
It appears to be highly probable that before very many years the Government 
will undertake the development of a channel for navigation in the Mississippi 
River below Cairo of much greater depth than has been so far attempted. The 
river bed is now in favorable condition for such an improvement. But if the 
revetments which have been enumerated should be abandoned, or not effectively 
maintained, or others equally important should be omitted or neglected, and the 
river should be permitted to have its way in tearing down banks and building 
bars for a few years, changes will take place which can never be undone and 
which will greatly increase the difficulty and expense of securing a deep chan¬ 
nel. It is a case in which an ounce of prevention will be worth pounds of cure. 

This statement had reference to the agitation which was very 
general at that time throughout the Mississippi Valley for a 14-foot 
channel from Chicago to the Gulf. 

Lyman E. Cooley, a civil engineer of great reputation, in a most 
interesting and elaborate discussion of the project for this 14-foot 
waterway before the Senate Committee on Commerce in 1910. speak¬ 
ing of that section of the river south of Cairo, said: 

The distance for practical consideration in the improvement of the stream 
is the 750 miles between Cairo and Red River. In that distance it is estimated 
that approximately a billion yards of material is cut from the banks every 
year, or in the average year. That is equivalent to saying that a strip 500 miles 
long, 100 feet wide, and 100 feet deep, tjie depth from the top of the banks to 
the bottom of the pools is cut from the banks of that river each year, amounting 
to a billion yards. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


61 


Illustrating the disastrous effect of this caving on the channel of 
the river, he added : 

lake a bend that cuts for a length of 5 miles and for a width of 100 feet 
and to the depth of the pool, 100 feet, this will give 10,000,000 yards. That is 
a^ characteristic of currents. Ten million yards is a square mile 10 feet deep. 
This material is largely deposited in the first crossing below, and will fill it up 
to a depth ot 10 feet for perhaps 1 or 2 miles, a part of it going to some farther 
crossing. As the river falls it must find a new channel through that deposit. 
It may duplicate the channel of last year or it may be directed by hydraulic 
dredging, and again it may cut out erratically and change the condition below, 
diminishing in effect down the stream. Now, hold the banks of this bend. 
You stop this local deposit. You have an immediate effect on the crossing and 
the benefits are felt downstream 15 or 25 miles. As you hold other bends the 
effect is increased until the whole stream is under control. 

Referring to the possibility of securing this 14-foot depth, Mr. 
Cooley further said: 

You can see at once, as anyone can understand, that if you stop the local 
erosion of a billion yards, amounting to two and a half times all the material 
that, comes to the river, two and a half times all the material that goes out of it, 
that when you have stopped that, by securing these banks you have changed 
radically the nature of the stream. Exactly what effect will be produced I 
can not say. There will be some lowering of the river bed; the horizon of the 
bars will be greatly reduced. I have no doubt it will produce 14 feet the year 
around. 

Senator Burton. That work alone? 

Mr. Cooley. Yes, sir; and that it will improve with time. 

Fourteen Feet Through the Valley. 

He gives it as his opinion in fact that revetment would give a 
deeper channel than 14 feet, and that if it were ever expected to have 
a ship channel from the Gulf to Cairo, that it would be necessary in 
order to secure it to complete the work of revetment now in progress 
on the river. His statement is quoted once more: 

Senator Nelson. Will you tell us how you would proceed to get a 24-foot 
channel from the mouth of the Illinois down to the Red River? I take it that 
there is a 24-foot channel from the mouth of the Red River to the Head of 
Passes at all seasons. 

Mr. Cooley. I will answer tint question in this way: It is agreed, gentlemen, 
I do not think there is any dispute about it, that the effect of holding the banks 
will be to produce not less than 14 feet through the lower Mississippi. It is 
believed by some high officials, and has been so expressed to me, that it will 
probably result in at least 20 feet, and I wish to say that if it does result in 
20 feet you will have 24 feet for 8 or 10 months. 

There is no man who has ever been connected in any way with the 
improvement of this river whose judgment in all matters touching 
the various methods for its improvement, its effect upon the com¬ 
merce of the river, or the desirability of the prosecution of the project 
in the interest of navigation as well as flood control, is entitled to 
more consideration, or whose opinion should carry greater weight 
than the opinion of Judge R. S. Taylor, of Indiana. Judge Taylor 
was appointed by President Harrison as his successor when he left 
the commission to become President of the United States, and since 
that time he has devoted to it the greater part of his time and brought 
to its study all the energy and power of his great intellect. No man 
is ever listened to with greater interest or more perfect confidence 
and reliance by both the Committee on Commerce in the Senate and 
the Rivers and Harbors Committee of the House. He has never ad¬ 
dressed either of these committees without instructing them, and has 

30573°-—II. Rep. 300, 03-2, pt 2-5 



62 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI BIVEIL 


never discussed any phase of the areat problem presented without 
illuminating it. The following quotations from his statement before 
the Commerce Committee of the Senate in 1910 explain very clearly 
the work of revetment and demonstrate its necessity if the channel of 
the river is to be kept at a depth which will certainly be required if it 
is ever to be a real highway for our commerce: 

I have spoken so far of revetments as means of preventing cut-offs and pro¬ 
tecting levees, but if we are to look forward to the development and mainte¬ 
nance of a deep channel down the Mississippi River, whether it he 14 feet or 
less or more, then revetment assumes importance for another and entirely dif¬ 
ferent purpose. The only impediment to navigation in the Mississippi River is 
the bars. These bars come almost entirely from the caving banks. There is 
some sediment coming into the Mississippi River at Cairo from the Missouri, 
but it is a comparatively small portion. Altogether the greater part of the sand 
which builds up the bars comes from the banks in the vicinity. 

I have sometimes been asked the question, very frequently, in fact, whether 
the improvement of the lower Mississippi to a 14-foot depth is practicable. I 
answer without hesitation that it is. 

Every revetment that is put in and holds its place stops that much caving 
and cuts off that much of the supply upon which the bars are fed. If the caving 
banks were all revetted the bars would be starved out; they would not disap¬ 
pear entirely, but they would be reduced to such small proportions that you 
would have a deep natural channel, r believe that if the banks were all revetted 
the river would become navigable to 1 1 feet without any other sort of an im¬ 
provement at all. If we have in mind the probability of looking for further 
depths in the Mississippi River, the course we want to pursue is to greatly in¬ 
crease the number of revetments, with the view of diminishing the activity of 
bar building. It is certainly true that the revetment of caving banks diminishes 
the activity of bar building. There is a stretch of river called Plum Point 
reach, aboi t 75 miles above Memphis, where a large number of revetments were 
put in years ago, and a large number of them are there yet. If or 40 or 50 miles 
below that reach there has been a noticeable diminution of bars. They are of 
less height than they once were, and I think the evidence is clear that they 
have shrunk in consequence of the revetments that have been put in above them, 
and there is nothing to account for it that I know of except the diminution of 
bar building activity due to the revetments in Plum Point reach. 

If we ever expect to greatly increase the depth in the Mississippi River below 
Cairo, revetments will be necessary. Nothing can be more certain than that; 
and inasmuch as every revetment that is put in now to protect the levee at a 
critical point will contribute at once to the diminution of bar building activity 
and also to protect the levee and so do service in two directions at once. I say, 
gentlemen, that I know of no place in all the United States where you can put 
.$4,000,000 with more certainty of useful results than right there. 

Senator Burton. What share of the sand bar building material, as you term 
it, in the river below Cairo originates from the caving of the banks, and what 
share comes in from above? You never made any calculation on that. I suppose, 
but your statement gives less importance to that which flows in from above 
Cairo than some have given to it. 

Mr. Taylor. I know it does, but I think I am right there. 

Senator Burton. Now, reducing it to fractions, approximately, what would 
you say it was from the Mississippi River above Cairo and what share de¬ 
veloped in that section? 

Mr. Taylor. I should say, without any hesitation—although you must know 
that this is largely conjecture, yet I should say without hesitation that not 
1 per cent of it comes from above Cairo. 

The Hydraulic Dredge and its Limitations. 

He then discusses the hydraulic dredge and its operation, with the 
final conclusion that no permanent or dependable channel can now be 
maintained by this agency: 

Senator Burton. You do not think you would get 5 additional feet by dredg¬ 
ing? You have 9 now. 

Mr. Taylor. No, sir. I do not think you could get 5 additional feet by dredg¬ 
ing. We tried twm experiments—one last year and one the year before. We 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI MVER 


63 


experimented on two or three bars to see if we could get 14 feet by dredging. 
We made a success on two of them and a failure on the third. The result of the 
experiment as a whole was to indicate that an attempt to get 14 feet by dredg¬ 
ing in the present condition of the river would be uncertain and unreliable. 

Senator Burton. To increase the depth by spur dikes or by contracting the 
width of the channel would be a very different question. 

Mr. Taylor. You could not do that. 

Senator Burton. Or by dams or anything of that kind? 

Mr. Taylor. I do not think so. 

Permanency of Revetment Work. 

• The following description of revetment work and its durability 
is taken from the statement of Mr. S. Waters Fox, made before the 
Senate Committee on Commerce in 1910. Mr. Fox is a civil engi¬ 
neer, but was employed by the Government for 24 years in work on 
the Missouri River. It will be observed from his statement that 
revetments, when once properly placed, will last forever: 

Mr. Fox. The revetment work on the river was the result of a good deal 
of experimentation by the Government, and finally resulted in what is known 
as the “continuous woven willow type.” It consisted of a mattress made of 
willows, woven in basket form into a continuous piece that was about SO feet 
wide from the standard low-water contour of the bank and extended from end 
to end of the bank to be protected. This mattress was reinforced by a system of 
galvanized steel-wire strands and anchored to the bank by means of those wire 
strands to deadmen back of the top of the bank. The bank from standard 
low-water contour, or the inner edge of the mattress, as nearly as the stage 
of the water permitted, was graded to a slope that varied from two to three 
on one, or, even flatter in some localities, by means of a hydraulic jet. The 
mattress was sunk in contact with the bottom by means of riprap stone, and 
the upper bank, from the inner edge of the mattress to a contour about 2* 
feet above standard high-water plane, was protected by means of a pavement 
of riprap stone. This pavement was covered over with spawls that would 
fill the interstices of the pavement. 

Senator Martin. Plow long do those mattresses last? 

Mr. Fox. Indefinitely, if not outflanked by the river or torn by abrasion from 
ice. 

Senator Martin. Would they not rot out or decay? 

Mr. I^ox. No, sir: because, in the later construction, when the revetment 
became standardized to the specifications I have just given, the inner edge was 
kept down near the standard low-water contour, and that provided for all but 
a very narrow strip of the mattress being constantly under water, and all of 
it was under water for a long enough period to thoroughly leach out those acids 
that tend to decay the brush, so that in a short time the brush forming the 
mattress was robbed of its rotting qualities and was indefinitely preserved. 

Senator Martin. What length of time by actual experience have you ob¬ 
served those mattresses and how long have they been constructed—what length 
of time for observation have you had? 

Mr. Fox. Since 1879. 

Senator Martin. About 30 years? 

Mr. Fox. About 31 years; yes. sir. 

Senator Martin. And there is no indication of dec-ay or decomposition at all 
in those 31 years? 

Mr. Fox. The standard construction of which I speak was not adopted until 
some time after that, but of the earlier structures which were put under water 
we have a good many examples which prove that brush mattresses below a con¬ 
stants wet horizon do not decay. 

Senator Martin. Some of the parts are under water and some are not? 

Mr Fox. Those parts of mattresses that in the early constructions were well 
above midstage rotted out sooner or later; more quickly if the brush had been 
cut during the period of active growth than when cut late in the fall or winter. 

Senator Martin. What was the result to the balance; did it not give way? 

Mr Fox. In the earliest constructions, yes. But later on the anchorage held 
the lower work in place and the danger was confined to the upper bank work. 


64 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


Senator Martin. I>o you not have to renew the part of it that rots out for 
the protection of the part that is under water? 

Mr. Fox. In the later construction, when revetment became standardized, the 
specifications were such that no part of the work was of a perishable character. 
It was all of a permanent character, with stone on the upper bank and brush 
on the sub-bank. 

Senator Martin. So that as now constructed you would consider them im¬ 
perishable? 

Mr. Fox. I would consider it practically so; as much so as any work of 
man is. 

Senator Martin. As much so as stone or iron? 

Mr. Fox. It is made of stone where exposed. 

Senator Martin. I thought it was made of brush. 

Mr. Fox. The brush is under the water. And there it is not perishable. 
We have taken out of the river pieces of wood from hulls and trunks of trees 
that must have been there a great many years. I remember in excavating 
for a new mouth of the Osage River we found in the bottom of the cut, which 
was below the line of permanent saturation, black walnut trees, over which 
there were growing white oak trees that must have been 600 years old. Those 
trees were in a perfect state of preservation; they were absolutely sound. 

These opinions of the engineers who have spent so many years 
in the study of the river and its serious problems are quoted for the 
purpose of demonstrating beyond all peradventure that revetment 
work is an absolute essential to the improve vent of the river solely 
in the interest of commerce and navigation. It is exactly the same 
character of work that is being done and has been done on the 
Missouri River from Kansas City down and which must be and in¬ 
evitably will be done on the reaches of that river above Kansas City 
to Sioux City. It is absolutely necessary in order to maintain a 
9-foot channel below Cairo. We are now prosecuting a project for 
9 feet in the Ohio River from Pittsburgh to the Mississippi River, 
which will cost upward of $65,000,000. 

We are engaged on a project on the Missouri which will secure 
similar depth from Kansas City downstream, and it would be noth¬ 
ing short of monumental stupidity aside from a wicked waste of 
the people’s money to complete these two great projects and then 
abandon the main stream into which they flow and over which their 
commerce must pass in order to reach the Gulf. 

From the above statements it is very clear and will be apparent 
to anyone who reflects upon the subject that it is utterly unfair to 
charge the cost of this revetment work on the lower Mississippi 
against the project for the completion of the levee system or to state 
that it is being done for the protection of those who live in the deltas 
of the lower river. 

River Transportation and Railroad Rates. 

The decline in the tonnage borne on the lower Mississippi has been 
noted and its causes stated. But it must be remembered that navi¬ 
gation is only one of the elements embraced in the broader term 
“ commerce.” It means something more. It is a mistake, therefore, 
to value the function which a river performs as a great transporta¬ 
tion agency solely by the amount of freight which actually floats 
upon its bosom. The fact that the river is capable of bearing ton¬ 
nage is a most material factor in regulating and reducing railroad 
rates. Tt is no answer to this that the Interstate Commerce Com- 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 65 

mission and the various railroad commissions in the States are cre¬ 
ated and maintained at great expense and clothed with full authority 
and power to compel the railroads to charge only reasonable rates. 
There never has been and there never will be any governmental 
authority created which can ascertain as well or as accurately as 
these companies can themselves just what the minimum profitable 
rate is. If a reduction in a given rate is proposed by the Interstate 
Commerce Commission, the railroad companies at once take the posi¬ 
tion that the rate is confiscatory and the commission must institute 
a most searching inquiry into all the related subjects and functions 
of the road to ascertain whether the proposed reduction will in fact 
leave a rate sufficiently high to be reasonable. If, however, this same 
road is forced into competition by the improvement of a competing, 
waterway their rates will at once voluntarily be reduced, frequently 
to a point lower than any commission could ever justify if it pre¬ 
scribed the reduction. 

In his testimony before the Commerce Committee of the Senate, 
when the railroad rate bill was being considered, Mr. Stuyvesant 
Fish, president of the Illinois Central and Yazoo & Mississippi 
Valley Railroads, said: 

The rivers, and especially the Mississippi Itiver, control rates, and will con¬ 
tinue to do so even though the steamboat traffic shall not be renewed. 

In his testimony before the Nelson committee in 1897, Mr. Charles 
A. Pillsbury, the great flour-mill man of Minneapolis, said: 

We consider the presence of the Mississippi River and the fact that it is 
kept in a navigable condition the great regulator of the railroad rates; that 
the benefits should not be measured by the tonnage as much as by the possibility 
of sending the freight by water. 

Upon further questioning, he stated that much of the flour milled 
at Minneapolis would actually be transported to the sea on the Mis¬ 
sissippi River but for the fact that railroads on account of this 
competition gave him such very low rates. 

The annual products of the Mississippi Valley amount in value to 
$15,000,000 000, a sum entirely beyond the comprehension of the 
normal mind. Of this amount about one-half is the value of farm 
products. Every dollar of this incomprehensible total is affected 
by the transportation rates by which the surplus can be delivered to 
the consuming markets, and this total is increasing annually by leaps 
and bounds. 

As stated in Mr. Austin’s article on the Panama Canal. 85 per cent 
of the corn, 75 per cent of the wheat, 70 per cent of the live stock. 
70 per cent of the cotton, 70 per cent of the iron ore, 70 per cent of 
the petroleum,. 50 per cent of the wool, 50 per cent of the copper, 
50 per cent of the lumber, 50 per cent of the coal, and 40 per cent 
of the manufactures of the entire country are produced in the Mis¬ 
sissippi Valley. Since 1870 the production of corn in the United 
States has increased from 1,000,000.000 to 3,000,000,000 bushels per 
annum: wheat from 235,000,000 to 650,000,000 bushels per annum; 
cotton from 3.000,000 to 15,000,000 bales; farm products from $2,000,- 
000.000 to $9,000,000,000 per annum. The growth in our manufac¬ 
tures has kept this pace, having increased from $4,250,000,000 in 1870 


66 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


to $20,000,000,000 in 1910. From these figures it is perfectly ap¬ 
parent that any legislation which will enable the people of this busy 
valley to transport their products at a lesser rate than is charged 
to-day will effect a very material reduction in this character of 
taxation. 

Mr. H. G. Wilson made a most interesting statement before the 
Rivers and Harbors Committee, in which he went into great detail in 
his explanation of this particular subject (p. 16). He was for many 
years an official in the freight traffic department of the Kansas City, 
Fort Scott & Memphis Railroad and is one of the best-posted men 
who has appeared before the Committee on Rivers and Harbors. He 
stated that railroad rates from the territory lying east of Pittsburgh 
and Buffalo to points as far west as Galena, Kans., and Denver, Colo., 
were all affected by the water transportation of the Mississippi River, 
and that the rates on all the traffic across Missouri River points into 
Oklahoma, Texas, and the Southwest generally were materially low¬ 
ered by this potential competition. There are more than 5,000,000 
tons of such freight annually. This subject has been thrashed out 
in the House so frequently and is one with which the Members are so 
familiar that it is unnecessary to dwell upon it further. 

PROSPECTIVE GR0W T TH OF RIVER TRAFFIC. 

When the great tributaries of the Mississippi are improved to the 
depths which traffic requires, in accordance with the projects now 
under way, the tonnage actually carried on the Mississippi River will 
grow to tremendous proportions. One hundred million tons pass 
through Pittsburgh now annually—all of it of a character that would 
naturally seek cheap water transportation to the sea, but the Ohio 
River is only navigable by barges of sufficient draft to be economical 
during periods of high water. The Ohio Valley is one of the busiest 
valleys in the world; there are great manufacturing establishments 
along its shores, as well as along the upper Mississippi and the Mis¬ 
souri, and they are all looking forward to the opening of the Panama 
Canal with exceeding great interest. If our trade is not going to be 
tremendously increased with the countries which will be brought into 
closer commercial contact with us by the construction of the Panama 
Canal, why was this great expenditure of $375,000,000 ever under¬ 
taken? The story of the decline of steamboat traffic on the Missis¬ 
sippi River has already been told. When it is recalled that only 
three and one-half million acres have been put into cultivation in 
the great valley from Cairo to the Gulf, it will be seen at once that 
when through traffic from the wonderfulty developed area north of 
Cairo was cut off in this way and prevented from using the river 
this decline in the annual amount of tonnage borne was inevitable. 
The local traffic on the Ohio River has greatly increased as the ter¬ 
ritory bordering that river has been settled up and converted into a 
hive of industry, and this same result will most surely follow when 
the deltas of the Mississippi are in like manner put into cultivation 
and cities spring up along its banks. With the experience of the 
past steamboat men have naturally been wary, but when the im¬ 
provements contemplated by pending legislation are completed—in 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


67 


fact, when the work is begun in earnest fashion—there is every reason 
to believe that the old order of enterprise will again be established. 

An article written by Judge Taylor, in which he refers to this 
particular feature, is quoted: 

It is a disappointment to us ail that commerce lias not taken advantage of the 
increased channel depths in the Mississippi from St. Louis to New Orleans, as 
they have been developed within 10 years past. Rut the reasons are not far 
lo seek. The first is the uncertainty of their permanent maintenance. They 
depend upon annual appropriations by Congress. 

❖ * * * * * * 


It will take some strong, courageous, optimistic man or group of men to make 
a start in the navigation of the Mississippi below Cairo. Once started on a 
foundation of confidence, it will grow. If there were a channel 10 feet deep 
from Chicago to New Orleans to-day, with public confidence in its permanence, 
it would be crowded with boats within 10 years. If we postpone work for a 
“ demand ” and discover no demand until we see men standing on the bank 
with money in their hands, there will never be any improved waterways. God 
Almighty did not wait for a demand from commerce before lie made the 
Great Lakes. 

Everybody is afraid of the Mississippi River. The people who live in its 
alluvial valley are afraid of its floods; steamboat men are afraid of its bars. 
The inhabitants are just beginning to take courage. The water has been held 
at bay for 10 years. But an extraordinary flood, a few bad crevasses, and the 
inundation of four or five thousand square miles would plunge them into despair 
again, from which it would take a long time to recover. We have had a 9-foot 
low-water channel below Cairo nearly all the time for a little less than 10 years. 
But it has not been entirely trustworthy. There have been some slips in the 
management of the dredges, and some bars have gotten ahead of us for a few 
days a few times; not often nor for long, hut enough to keep alive the sense of 
uncertainty. So men who would build big boats to navigate it wait and keep 
waiting. 

In bis testimony before the committee, which appears on page 85 
of the recent hearings, Col. Townsend explains the necessity of 
improving the great tributaries of the Mississippi and cites the fact 
that there were only a few which had a navigable depth of 4 feet. 
This fact leaves only the undeveloped deltas on either side of the 
river to furnish tonnage for the boats named, and as there are only 
three and one-half million acres now in cultivation out of a total of 
20,000.000, there is no occasion for surprise that the actual tonnage 
floated upon the river has so steadily decreased. On this point he 

said: 


Over 100,000,000 tons of freight annually pass through Pittsburgh, much of 
which is of a character which seeks cheap water transportation. The Ohio 
Valiev is teeming with factories whose products would naturally move down 
the river The flour of Minneapolis and the grain of the Northwest are demand¬ 
ing cheaper transportation, and it is from these sources that we must seek the 
commerce that will justify further development of the main stream. It is 
folly to expend hundreds of millions of dollars in cieating a deep channel in 
the lower Mississippi River so long as boats navigating the tributaries can not 
utilize existing depths. During the past low-water season there were few 
tributaries of the river which had a navigable depth of 4 feet; and its commerce 
was practically suspended, not for lack ol depth in its channel, but because 
there was no source from which freight could be derived. 


In view of the fact that we are expending many millions to 
give the tributaries—the Ohio, the upper Mississippi, and the Mis¬ 
souri-proper channel depth, it may be added that it would be folly 
to expend these millions in creating a deep channel in the tributaries 
unless boats navigating these tributaries could utilize the lower 


68 


.FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVEIi. 


Mississippi Biver, and it has been very clearly shown that there is 
but one way to maintain this depth, and that is by levees and re¬ 
vetment. 


Flood Control in the Interest of Interstate Intercourse. 

Aside from the mere question of navigation of the Mississippi 
Biver control of the floods is necessary in the interest of that other 
element of interstate commerce, which the court, as noted above, des¬ 
ignates “ intercourse.” Some of the great trunk lines of the country 
run from east to west across the deltas, and are seriously interfered 
with, and interstate traffic stopped for long periods of time, by the 
floods of the Mississippi. The railroads cross the river at St. Louis, 
Cairo, Memphis, Vicksburg, and New Orleans. In addition to these, 
two great railroad systems run north and south through the deltas, 
the Illinois Central on the east bank and the Iron Mountain on the 
west bank of the river. Traffic on these roads is tremendous. There 
are several thousand miles of railroad subjected to overflow when 
the levees break. Mr. Bush, president of the Missouri Pacific-Iron 
Mountain system, recently stated: 

The Mississippi River overflow in 1012 incapacitated G17 miles of the St. 
Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway, of which 352 miles was under water, 
some of it for a period of over five months. The value of the road under water 
was over $12,000,000, and the physical damage, as revealed by the repairs subse¬ 
quently made, was $415,000. The loss in traffic has been conservatively esti¬ 
mated at $550,000, which would represent commerce to the value of $5,500,000, 
which was destroyed. In addition to this there was a considerable loss occa¬ 
sioned by a great deal of the farming land contiguous to the river not being fit 
for cultivation the ensuing season. 

For the year 1913 the physical damage to the Iron Mountain Railway was 
$460,000, and the loss in traffic is estimated at $196,000. This would make the 
total loss for the two years: 


Physical damage-$875, 000 

Loss in traffic earnings_ 746, 000 

-$1, 621. 000 

Estimated loss in retardation of commerce_ 7.460,000 


The commerce borne by these roads is in no sense local. A mere 
glance at the map will suffice to make that point clear. This com¬ 
merce in fact affects and touches every section of the country. There 
are not many manufacturing enterprises in the deltas. It is the great 
producer of raw materials, and these are all shipped to other sections of 
the country; whereas all the manufactured products, which are con¬ 
sumed there, are shipped from the various centers of distribution 
throughout the East, but the interruption of traffic on these railroads 
goes far beyond that. It stops the transportation of products from 
points far to the east of the overflowed valley destined to points far 
west. To interfere seriously with the operation of 4,000 miles of rail¬ 
road for some 30 to 60 and even to 90 days is a matter that materially 
affects the welfare and industrial activity of all the people. It is well 
worth recalling in this connection that the inland commerce of the 
Mississippi Valley is almost equal in its value to the aggregate value 
of the international commerce of the world. One illustration of the 
national character of this disaster was given by Mr. Bush in his 
statement before the committee when he cited the case of a manu¬ 
facturing establishment in Baltimore, with a plant more than 1.000 






FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER, 


69 


miles from the Mississippi River 1 , which estimated its loss by the 
flood of 1912 at $200,000. “Think of the effect on every small mill 
down in New England,” declared Mr. Fairchild. “ Think of the 
effect, the possible effect upon them now, of a partial failure of cotton 
crops during the last few years; think of the thousands and thou¬ 
sands of people all over our northern country who are so immediately 
affected in their daily lives by this, and then logically with all else 
that we have done and are doing, we should above all things promote 
the welfare of this Mississippi Valley.” 

This phase of the question is discussed fully by Gen. T. C. Catch- 
ings and Gov. Blanchard in their arguments on the constitutional 
question involved, which appear in a subsequent chapter. 


Chapter VII. 

THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER AND THE PANAMA CANAL. 


In his statement, previously referred to, Mr. Fairchild said: 

Think of the great enterprise upon which we are entering in building a 
canal; to build a canal to connect the Atlantic and the Pacific. Think of 
what we are doing in the Far East, in China, in extending our treaty rela¬ 
tions, in taking up a position where we will have a greater influence and a 
greater access than ever before. Why? For what? To do what with them? 
To sell things to those people. What things? Why, the main thing we are 
to sell them is cotton—cotton goods. That is why we are willing to almost 
strain our relations with some of the nations of the world, that we may keep 
open markets. What we wish to sell in those markets is cotton goods. Now, 
if we do not take care of the production of the raw material of the cotton 
goods, all that we are doing in that respect is almost waste time, because we 
will cease to be a great cotton manufacturing country. 

Such was the opinion of one of the most distinguished financiers 
and business men of our country. If the Panama Canal is ever to be 
worth the price which our country paid for it, a mere glance at the 
map will suffice to satisfy the most skeptical that the Mississippi 
River and its tributaries must be a most important factor in bringing 
about this result. It has been frequently stated that the Panama 
Canal would in effect empty the Mississippi River into the Pacific 
as well as into the Atlantic Ocean. There is no other such river in 
the world as the Mississippi. The valley which it drains and which 
has in the past been so dependent upon it for transportation facilities 
must look to it with increasing interest and dependence as the future 
demonstrates the wisdom of undertaking that great engineering 
enterprise at the Isthmus. 

There can be no question that Congress, in response to the unani¬ 
mous demand from the entire valley, which is indorsed throughout 
the country, has been convinced of the national importance of im¬ 
proving the navigable rivers of the Mississippi Valley. We are now 
well on our way to the completion of a project for a 9-footh depth in 
the Ohio River from Pittsburgh to Cairo. This will cost $63,000,000 
when completed. We are prosecuting with equal rapidity the im¬ 
provement of the Missouri River from Kansas City with a view to 
securing an equal depth in that river. This project will cost $20,- 
000,000. We are canalizing the Mississippi River above the mouth 
of the Missouri, and we have secured and now maintain a channel of 
9 feet from the mouth of the Mississippi to the mouth of the Ohio— 
2,500 miles of navigable rivers 9 feet deep, from the Gulf of Mexico 
into the very heart of this marvelous valley. The total mileage of 
all the navigable tributaries, however, far exceeds this 2,500 miles of 
trunk line; there are in fact about 15,000 miles. The main trunk 
70 



FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVEN, 


71 


line into-which all of the tributaries flow is that reach of the Mis¬ 
sissippi River from Cairo south. It has been stated and demon¬ 
strated elsewhere that this reach of the river can not be maintained 
to the required depth without levees and revetment. Is it worth 
while ? 

In 1911 Hon. O. P. 'Austin, Chief of the Bureau of Statistics, in 
the Department of Commerce and Labor, delivered an address before 
the Deeper Waterways Association at Chicago on the subject of the 
Panama Canal and the Mississippi Valley. The subject is handled 
by Mr. Austin so far beyond our ability to treat it, and so illuminates 
the subject in hand that it is quoted fully: 

The relation of the Panama Canal to the Mississippi Valley may be stated in 
a single sentence: The Mississippi Valley can not attain complete commercial 
success without the Panama Canal; the Panama Canal can not attain complete 
commercial success without the Mississippi Valley, reenforced by deeper water¬ 
ways from the Lakes to the Gulf. 

AN OPEN DOOR FOR THE WORLD’S GREATEST PRODUCING AREA. 

What is the Panama Canal? A ditch 50 miles long, 500 feet wide, 40 feet 
deep, connecting, for purposes of international commerce, the two greatest 
oceans of the world. What is the Mississippi Valley? The world’s greatest 
single producer of the principal articles forming international commerce. What 
are you gentlemen gathered here proposing for this Mississippi Valley? A sys¬ 
tem which shall give to its products through water transportation from the 
place of production to the Panama Canal and thence direct to the trade centers 
of countries having half of the world’s population. Hence the relation of the 
Panama Canal to the commerce of the Mississippi Valley will be that of the 
most direct and cheapest route of transportation from the door of the producer 
to the door of the consumer. May we expect that the opening of the Panama 
Canal will be followed by an improvement in the trade of this valley with the 
markets of the Pacific? Undoubtedly. May we expect that the development of 
deeper waterways from the Lakes to the Gulf will still further improve the 
commerce of this valley with the markets of the Pacific and, indeed, the markets 
of the whole world? Beyond any possible doubt. 

THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY AS A PURVEYOR TO WORLD MARKETS. 

You will expect of me some reason for the opinions which I have here ex¬ 
pressed. Let me give them to you in brief: 

First. The Mississippi Valley is already the world’s greatest single producer 
of a large proportion of the articles entering commerce and required for that 
commerce. 

Second. It has already exceptional facilities for distributing its products to 
the market fronting upon the Atlantic, and the canal will give it similar facili¬ 
ties for the markets fronting upon the Pacific. 

Third. These exceptional conditions of producing power and opportunities of 
distribution are so largely the result of natural conditions that we may look 
upon them when once attained as a permanent part of the world’s system of 
production and interchanges. 

What, then, is the Mississippi Valley as a contributor to the world’s com¬ 
merce? First, a great Temperate Zone area, equal in extent to all Europe ex¬ 
cept Russia, lying between two mountain ranges, with a Great Lakes system 
at the north and 19,000 miles of navigable rivers flowing to tidewater at the 
south. These rivers there mingle with those of another river, the Gulf Stream, 
flowing toward Europe at a speed even greater than that of the Mississippi, 
while at the western end of the Panama Canal we shall find another ocean 
current moving westward across the Pacific at the rate of 25 miles a day. In 
addition to these natural transportation facilities, the art of man has given 
to this valley 150,000 miles of railway—one-fourth the railway mileage of the 
W01 ld—and every year a larger percentage of this mileage moves its trains 
in a north-and-south direction, and the percentage of our exports passing out 
at the ports at the south increases from year to year. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI PI VEIL 


vz 


UNITED STATES IN WORLD'S PRODUCTION. 

The United States, as a whole, is the world’s largest single producer of many 
of the articles of the world’s requirements. We produce three-fourths of the 
world’s corn, two-thirds of its cotton, nearly two-thirds of its petroleum, one- 
half of its copper, nearly one-half of its pig iron, two-fiftlis of its coal, and more 
than any other country of its wheat and oats and meat and tobacco and lumber 
and manufactures. 

SHARE OF OUR PRODUCTS ORIGINATING IN THE VALLEY. 

Of our own production of these articles the Mississippi Valley produces 85 
per cent of the corn, 75 per cent of the wheat, 70 per cent of the live stock, 70 
per cent of the cotton, 70 per cent of the iron ore, 70 per cent of the petroleum, 
50 per cent of the wool, 50 per cent of the copper, 50 per cent of the lumber, 50 
per cent of the coal, about 40 per cent of the manufactures, and has nearly 
70 per cent of the farm areas and farm values of the country. As a result 
of these conditions the plentiful supply of cotton, wool, iron, copper, lumber, 
coal, petroleum, and food of all kinds, this valley is enlarging its share in the 
rapidly increasing production of manufactures in the United States. Our 
country is already the world’s greatest manufacturer. The gross value of our 
manufactures has grown from four and one-fourth billion dollars in 1870 to five 
and one-third billions in 1S80. nine and one-third billions in 1890, thirteen 
billions in 1900, fifteen billions in 1905, and practically twenty billions in 1910, 
while the share which the Mississippi Valley has produced of this rapidly in¬ 
creasing total was, in 1870, 27 per cent; in 1880, 30 per cent; in 1890, 35 per¬ 
cent; in 1905, 38 per cent; and in 1910, nearly 40 per cent. The gross value of 
manufactures provided in this valley has grown from one billion dollars in 
1870 to seven and one-half billions in 1910. 

PERMANENCE OF PRODUCING POWER. 

May we expect a continuation of the wonderful producing power of this val¬ 
ley? Yes. Once the bed of an ocean, it thus received the basis of a strong and 
durable soil, and to this the glacial period contributed in the section lying north 
of the Ohio River additional soil and soil material brought from the far north, 
while washings from the mountain sides through centuries of time contributed 
to the soil of the sections farther south. Another contributor to the produc¬ 
tiveness, and especially the permanence of production in this valley, is the re¬ 
liable rainfall, largely due to that great westward air current, a result of the 
eastward movement of the earth, which crosses the Atlantic near the Equator, 
where evaporation from the ocean is very great, and, deflected northward by 
the great mountain ranges, passes up the Mississippi Valley, and, cooling as it 
rises and moves northward, discharges the condensed moisture, giving to this 
area a more evenly distributed and reliable rainfall than is enjoyed by any 
other like Temperate Zone area of the world. Thus we may assume that the 
producing power of the valley as a whole is to continue indefinitely. 

PERMANENCE OF VALLEY’S COMMERCE. 

Will its status as a contributor to the world’s commerce continue? Yes. We 
have become the world’s largest producer of cotton and corn and wheat and 
meats chiefly through the natural conditions just mentioned, and we may ex¬ 
pect that the system of strengthening the soils by an intelligent study of their 
requirements will continue our producing power indefinitely. While we are re¬ 
quiring for our own use a steadily increasing share of our food products, manu¬ 
factures are becoming from year to year a larger share of our growing export 
trade, and this section is, as I have already shown you, steadily increasing the 
proportion which it supplies to this growing factor of commerce.* 

GROWTH OF MANUFACTURING IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 

The gross value of manufactures produced in the Mississippi Valley has 
grown, according to the official figures of the Census Bureau, from one billion 
dollars in 1S70 to one and two-thirds billions in 1880, three and one-fourth 
billions in 1890, four and three-fourths billions in 1900. five and two-thirds bil¬ 
lions in 1905, and seven and one-half billions in 1910, and the value of its other 
products is probably about an equal sum. The gross value of all the products 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


73 


of the Mississippi Valley may then be set down at approximately $15,000,(X)0,000 
per annum, a value as great as that of all the merchandise entering the inter¬ 
national markets of the entire world. 

Thus we may reasonably expect—indeed, we may feel an absolute assurance— 
that the contributions of this valley to the international commerce of the world 
are not only to continue at their present enormous total, but will increase from 
year to year and decade to decade. 

THE CANAL AN OPEN DOOR TO GREAT MARKETS. 

Now, as to the relation which the Panama Canal is to prove to this great 
and increasing commerce of the Mississippi Valley. It will become an “open 
door,” a direct route to the trade, first, of all the western coast of America; 
second, of all the eastern coast of Asia ; and, third, of that rapidly developing 
section known as Oceania. 

SHORTNESS OF PANAMA CANAL ROUTE. 

Look at the map of the world and you will see that the western coast of 
South America lies due south of the eastern coast of the United States, thus 
making the Panama Canal the direct route from the Mississippi Valley to all 
of the western coast of the South American Continent, and, of course, by far the 
shortest water route to all the western coast of the North American Continent. 
To Yokohama, the trade center of Japan and one of the great commercial cities 
of Asia, the distance from New Orleans by way of Panama is 9.268 miles against 
14,471 miles via the Suez Canal. To Shanghai, the commercial center of China 
and one of the most important of the Asiatic ports, the distance from New 
Orleans via Panama is 10,264 miles against 13,750 miles via Suez. To Hong¬ 
kong, one of the chief distributors of merchandise of eastern Asia, the distance 
from New Orleans via Panama is 10,830 miles, and via Suez 12,892 miles. To 
our own Philippine Islands, with which the trade is rapidly increasing under 
the new relations providing for free interchange between those islands and the 
United States, the distance from New Orleans via Panama is 10.993 miles 
against 12,946 miles via the Suez Canal. To Melbourne, one of the largest 
importing ports of Australia, in which country American goods are especially 
popular, the distance from New Orleans is 9.427 miles by way of Panama and 
14,303 miles via Suez. To Wellington, New Zealand, to which our exports also 
show a rapid growth, the distance from New Orleans via Panama is 7,939 miles 
against 15,620 miles via Suez. 

CANAL WILL GREATLY SHORTEN ROUTES TO PACIFIC PORTS. 

Thus the opening of the Panama Canal will shorten the steamship routes from 
New Orleans to Manila 1,953 miles; to Hongkong, 2,062 miles; to Shanghai, 
3.496 miles; to Melbourne, 4,876 miles; to Yokohama, 5,203 miles; and to 
Wellington, 7,861 miles. More than that, it will place New Orleans nearer to 
most of these ports than is London, the great commercial center of our principal 
rival in the oriental trade. The steamship distance from London via the Suez 
Canal to Yokohama, as given by an accepted authority, is 11.245 miles, against 
the distance from New Orleans via the Panama Canal to Yokohama, 9.26S miles; 
London to Shanghai, 10,650 miles; New Orleans to Shanghai, 10,254 miles; 
London to Melbourne, Australia, 11,250 miles; New Orleans to Melbourne, 
9.247 miles; London to Wellington, New Zealand, 12,615 miles; New Orleans to 
Wellington, 7,939 miles, thus placing New Orleaus 369 miles nearer to Shanghai, 
1,723 miles nearer to Melbourne. 1,977 miles nearer to Yokohama, and 4,676 miles 
nearer to Wellington, New Zealand, than is the chief commercial center of our 
chief rival in the oriental trade—London, England. 

VALUE OF THE MARKETS TO BE REACHED THROUGH THE CANAL. 

Thus we may assume that the canal is to bring this valley much nearer than 
at the present' time to practically all the countries fronting upon the Pacific, 
and considerably nearer than is London to many of them. Now, let us see 
what their trade amounts to, and how much we are at present getting of it, 
and thus be in position to arrive at some intelligent estimate of the prospective 
value of the Panama Canal as a shorter route to that trade for the products 
of the Mississippi Valley. The total value of the merchandise entering the ports 


74 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


of the western coast of America other than the United States now exceeds 
$300,000,000 per annum, and is rapidly increasing, while the recent completion 
of a through railway line connecting Argentina with the Pacific coast will, when 
the Panama Canal shall have been opened, offer a direct route from the Gulf 
ports to the markets of Argentina, whose imports alone aggregate $300,000,000 
per annum. Crossing the Pacific we find the imports of Japan from $250,000,000 
to $300,000,000 per annum; China, from three hundred to approximately three 
hundred and fifty million; Hongkong, estimated at approximately one hundred 
and fifty million; Australia and New Zealand, four hundred million; and the 
Philippine and Hawaiian Islands, $75,000,000 a year, making the total imports 
of the foreign countries which are to be brought nearer to you by the Panama 
Canal about $1,500,000,000 per annum. Add to this the trade of the western 
coast of the United States, which, you of the Mississippi Valley will be able to 
reach at less cost of transportation by water through the Panama Canal than 
by land over the Rocky Mountains, and you get a market approximately $2,000,- 
000, 000 per annum, in which the Panama Canal will give you new advantages 
and new opportunities. 

WATER TRANSPORTATION MUCH CHEAPER THAN ON LAND. 

And while 1 need not impress upon you gentlemen the importance of substi¬ 
tuting water transportation for that by land, your views in this direction will 
perhaps be strengthened when I tell you that the charge for transporting wheat 
by rail from Chicago to New York, a distance of 1,000 miles, has averaged 
during the last decade a little over 10 cents per bushel, while the average rate 
per bushel during the same period for the same wheat passing from New York 
to Liverpool, a distance of 3,000 miles, was 3 cents a bushel. Ten cents per 
bushel for 1,000 miles by rail; 1 cent per bushel for 1,000 miles by ocean 
steamer, and that, too, the annual average during the 10-year period, 1000-1910. 

PROXIMITY INCREASES OUR SHARE IN SUPPLYING MARKETS. 

Now, let us consider the effects of proximity and satisfactory transportation 
facilities in determining the share which we may obtain of the import trade of 
these countries—of any country, in fact. To determine this, approximately, 
at least, we have but to examine the records of our trade with various parts of 
the world at the present time. Take, for example, the countries lying directly 
south of us. In all those lying north of the Equator and reached by plentiful 
steamship facilities we supply from 30 to 60 per cent of their total imports. 
The moment, however, we pass to the southern sections of South America the 
share which we supply of their imports drops to approximately 10 per cent, 
and this is also true of the share which we obtained of the imports of prac¬ 
tically all the Asiatic territory fronting upon the Pacific Ocean. Taken as a 
whole, we now supply approximately io per cent of the imports of the area 
bordering upon the Pacific, exclusive of that under the American flag. And if 
our experience with that portion of Latin America which we already reach by 
direct and plentiful steamship facilities is to be a guide in determining the 
effect of more direct water communication with the countries fronting on the 
Pacific, we may expect to greatly increase the percentage which we now supply 
of their imports. 

MANUFACTURES FOKM GROWING SHARE OF EXPORTS. 

Still another reason why we should, and must, indeed, cultivate these markets 
is the fact that manufactures form a large part of their imports, and it is in 
manufactures in which we must make our greatest efforts for enlargement of 
our exports. The share of our wheat and corn and meats which we can spare 
for foreign countries is steadily decreasing, and we are also increasing the home 
consumption of our cotton. We can therefore only expect to maintain the 
growth in our export trade by increasing our exports of manufactures, and we 
are doing this. Our exports of manufactures have grown from $180,000,000 in 
1S90 and $475,000,000 in 1900 to over $900,000,000 in the fiscal year just ended, 
and the share which they formed of the total exports has increased from 21 
per cent in 1890 and 35 per cent in 1900 to 45 per cent in 1911. while the share 
which foodstuffs form of the exports has fallen from 410 per cent in 1900 to 
19 per cent in 1911 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


75 


MANUFACTURES CHIEF REQUIREMENT OF PACIFIC MARKETS. 

If we are to increase our exports of manufactures, it must be by increasing 
the trade with the sections of the world which require that class of merchan¬ 
dise; and while it is true that manufactures form 45 per cent of our exports as 
a whole, the fact that they form 75 per cent of the exports to Asia and S5 per 
cent of those to Oceania and South America and but 35 per cent of those to 
Europe renders an enlargement of the Pacific trade of especial importance to the 
Mississippi Valley, which last year produced $7,500,000,000 worth of manufac¬ 
tures, or about 40 per cent of the entire output of the United States. 

MUTUAL INTERDEPENDENCE OF THE CANAL AND THE VALLEY. 

I therefore close with the assertion with which I began this discussion: The 
Mississippi Valley can not attain complete commercial success without the Pan¬ 
ama Canal, and the Panama Canal can not attain complete commercial success 
without the Mississippi Valley, reenforced by deeper waterways from the Lakes 
to the Gulf. 


Chapter VIII. 

THE CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS INVOLVED. 


In view of the fact that the improvement of the Mississippi River 
has been in progress for more than 30 years, or to be more specific, 
ever since the 3d of March, 1881, when the project was definitely 
adopted by Congress, it would seem entirely unnecessary to dis¬ 
cuss the question of the power of Congress under the Constitution 
to make the appropriations asked for. Power, of course, is not 
wanting to complete a project which was ample to warrant its 
undertaking. However, as this question is so frequently raised, it 
is thought worth while to consider it here. In his address before 
the Memphis convention, Mr. Calhoun stated his theory as follows: 

He did not, liimself, believe in the power of the General Government to con¬ 
duct a system of internal improvement. He had, independently of other objec¬ 
tions, seen the evil effects of it in too many instances where it had been at¬ 
tempted and the system of logrolling which ensued, but, in relation to the great 
highway of western commerce, at least, the great inland sea of the country— 
the Mississippi—he did not for a moment question that Government was as 
much obligated to protect, defend, and improve it in every particular as it was 
to conduct these operations on the Atlantic seaboard. 

He then laid down this formula by which to test the constitu¬ 
tionality of all questions of similar import: 

It is the genius of our Government, and what is to me its beautiful feature, 
that what individual enterprise can effect alone is to be left to individual enter¬ 
prise; what a State and individuals can achieve together is left to the joint 
action of States and individuals; but what neither of these separately or co¬ 
joined are able to accomplish, that and that only is the province of the Federal 
Government. I think this is the case in reference to the Mississippi Itiver. 

Certainly the facts which have been related heretofore must con¬ 
vince the most skeptical that the problem presented by the floods 
of the Mississippi bring this question of their control clearly within 
the limitations of Mr. Calhoun’s definition. 

The letter of Thomas II. Benton to the delegates at the Chicago 
convention of 1847 has been quoted from. In this he erects the 
following standard by which to measure the constitutionality of 
any proposed public improvement: 

Objects of general and national importance can alone claim the aid of the 
Federal Government, and in favor of such objects I believe all the departments 
of the Government to be united. Confined to them, and the Constitution can 
reach them and the Treasury sustain them. Extended to local or sectional 
objects, and neither the Constitution nor the Treasury could uphold them. 
National objects of improvement are few in number, definite in character, and 
manageable by the Treasury. Local and sectional objects are innumerable and 
indefinite and ruinous to the Treasury. 

Applying this test to the Mississippi River, he concluded that its 
problems were of such general and national importance as to bring 
76 



FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 77 

them within the power delegated by the Constitution to the Federal 
Government. 

Gen. r l. C. Catellings and Gov. N. C. Blanchard, of Louisiana, 
both served many years with great distinction as Members of the 
House of Representatives and each, at different times, was chair¬ 
man of the Committee on Rivers and Harbors. 

Gen. Catchings is one of the ablest lawyers in the country, and 
his opinion on the constitutionality of any proposition must carry 
great weight. No man has studied the particular questions here 
involved more thoroughly than has Gen. Catchings, and for this 
reason he was requested to prepare a brief for use in this connec¬ 
tion. 

Gov. Blanchard, after his retirement from Congress, served with 
great distinction on the bench of the Supreme Court of Louisiana, 
and his ability as a lawyer is recognized throughout the Mississippi 
Valley. The brief of Gen. Catchings and an argument made by 
Mr. Blanchard while a Member of this House are reproduced with 
the confident belief that a careful perusal of either must bring con¬ 
viction to any open mind: 

Gen. Catchings’s Brief. 

What is commonly called the “ Ransdell-Humphreys bill ” does not 
by its terms seek an appropriation to protect the Mississippi Valley 
from floods for the purpose of conferring a benefit upon the owners 
of the lands in the valley. It provides an appropriation for con¬ 
tinuing the improvement of the Mississippi River from the Head of 
Passes to the mouth of the Ohio River, including the salaries, clerical 
fees, traveling and miscellaneous expenses of the Mississippi River 
Commission, with a view to securing a permanent channel depth of 
0 feet, preventing the banks of the river from caving, and protecting 
the valley from floods. The appropriation sought by it is to be ex¬ 
pended under the direction of the Secretary of War in accordance 
with the plans, specifications, and recommendations of the Missis¬ 
sippi River Commission, as approved by the Chief of Engineers, for 
the general improvement of the river for surveys, including a survey 
from the ITead of Passes to the headwaters of the river, in such man¬ 
ner as in their opinion shall best improve navigation and promote 
the interest of commerce at all stages of the river, and for the build¬ 
ing of levees between the Head of Passes and Cape Girardeau, Mo. 

In addition to the twelve millions sought to be appropriated for 
immediate use, the Secretary of War is authorized, by hired labor or 
otherwise, to continuously carry on the aforesaid plans of the Mis¬ 
sissippi River Commission, to be paid for as appropriations may be 
made from time to time by law, not to exceed in the aggregate forty- 
eight millions in addition to the twelve millions intended to be im¬ 
mediately available. 

The bill provides that the forty-eight millions shall be used in 
prosecuting the improvement for not less than four years, the work 
for each year to cost approximately $12,000,000. It directs that of 
the money appropriated and authorized to be expended nine millions 
per annum, or so much as may be necessary, shall be expended in the 
protection, repair, and construction of levees. The balance of the 
appropriation is directed to be used in the construction and repair of 

30573°—H. Rep. 300, 63-2, pt 2--6 


78 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


bank revetment and for work in the interest of navigation, including 
the construction of suitable and necessary dredge boats and other 
devices and appliances and in the maintenance and operation of the 
same. 

It is then stipulated that in the discretion of the Mississippi River 
Commission, upon the approval of the Chief of Engineers, allotments 
may be made from the amounts appropriated or authorized for im¬ 
provements now under way or hereafter to be undertaken upon water 
courses connected with the Mississippi River and in harbors upon it 
now under control of the commission and under improvement. 

The bill contains no statement as to why appropriations are sought 
for protecting the Mississippi Valley from floods. There is a simple 
declaration that the appropriation is made, among other things, for 
the purpose of protecting the valle}^ from floods. The bill gives no 
reason why nine millions per annum are directed to be expended in 
the protection, repair, and construction of levees; that is to say, the 
purpose to be subserved by the protection, repair, and construction of 
levees is not indicated. The statement that the balance of the appro¬ 
priation shall be used in the construction and repair of bank revet¬ 
ment and for work in the interest of navigation, including the con¬ 
struction of suitable and necessary dredge boats and other devices and 
appliances and in the maintenance and operation of the same, is sim¬ 
ply descriptive of the manner in which such balance of the appropria¬ 
tion shall be expended. The words “ in the interest of navigation ” 
do not imply that building levees is not in the interest of navigation, 
and are simply descriptive of the character of the work specifically 
defined in the concluding portion of the sentence in which these words 
appear. That is to say, the appropriation referred to as “ the balance 
of the twelve millions annually ” is specifically devoted to the con¬ 
struction and repair of bank revetment, the construction of suitable 
and necessary dredge boats and other devices and appliances, and for 
the maintenance and operation of the same, and for work in the inter¬ 
est of navigation. This means that if there should be any other work 
which in the judgment of the commission should be done in the inter¬ 
est of navigation other than that specifically designed they shall do 
that work. 

Levees are not referred to in this closing paragraph for the reason 
that they have already been specifically provided for. 

Although the purpose for which appropriations for the construc¬ 
tion and maintenance of levees are sought bv the bill is not expressed, 
yet the appropriations, if made, will be just as valid as if the pur¬ 
pose in making them had been expressed. The only question which 
could be raised, if we assume that the appropriations are made, will 
be as to whether the construction of levees bears any proper relation 
to the powers of the Government under the Constitution. 

In the case of Cherokee Nation v. Southern Kansas Itv. Co. (13 > 
U. S., 641) the Supreme Court said : 

It is not necessary that an act of Congress should express in 
words the purpose for which it was passed. The court will 
determine for itself whether the means employed by Congress 
have any relation to the powers granted by the Constitution. 

And Congress has a very great latitude in determining by what 
means it will perform an act which it has authority under the Con¬ 
stitution to perform. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


79 


, r In McCulloch V. State of Maryland (4 Wheat., 409). Chief Justice 
Marshall said: 

The Government which has a right to do an act, and which 
has imposed upon it the duty of performing that act, must 
according to the dictates of reason be allowed to select the 
means; and those who contend that it may not select any appro¬ 
priate means, that any particular mode of effecting the object 
is excepted, take upon themselves the burden of establishing that 
exception. 

And again, on page 413, he said: 

To emplo}' the means necessary to an end is generally under¬ 
stood as employing any means calculated to produce the end, 
and not as being confined to those single means without which 
the end would be entirely unattainable. 

And on page 423 he said: 

But where the law is not prohibited and is really calculated to 
effect any of the objects intrusted to the Government, to under¬ 
take here to inquire into the degree of its necessity would be to 
pass the line which circumscribes the judicial department and 
to tread on legislative ground. The court disclaims all pre¬ 
tensions to such power. 

And on page 421 he said : 

We admit, as all must admit, that the powers of the Govern¬ 
ment are limited, and that its limits are not to be transcended. 
But we think the sound construction of the Constitution must 
allow to the National Legislature that discretion, w T ith respect 
to the means by which the powers it confers are to be carried 
into execution, which will enable that body to perform the high 
duties assigned to it in the manner most beneficial to the people. 
Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the Con¬ 
stitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly 
adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with 
the letter and spirit of the Constitution, are constitutional. 

The Constitution expressly confers upon Congress the power 
to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying 
into execution its enumerated powers and all other powers vested 
in the Government of the United States or in any department or 
officer thereof. 

Discussing the clause of the Constitution conferring this power 
to make all such necessary and proper laws, the Supreme Court, 
in the legal tender case of Juilliard v. Greenmail (110 IT. S., 440), 
said: 

By the settled construction and the only reasonable inter¬ 
pretation of this clause the words “necessary and proper” are 
not limited to such measures as are absolutely and indispensa¬ 
bly necessary, without which the powers granted must fail of 
execution; but they include all appropriate means which are 
conducive or adapted to the end to be accomplished and which 
in the judgment of Congress will most advantageously effect it. 


80 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


It quoted with approval from the opinion of Chief Justice Mar¬ 
shall in the early case of United States v. Fisher (2 Cranch, 358) 
as follows: 

In construing this clause it would be incorrect and would 
produce endless difficulties if the opinion should be main¬ 
tained that no law was authorized which was not indispen¬ 
sably necessary to give effect to a specified power. Where 
various systems might be adopted for that purpose it might 
be said with respect to each that it was not necessary, because 
the end might be obtained by other means. Congress must 
possess the choice of means and must be empowered to use 
any means which are, in fact, conducive to the exercise of a 
power granted by the Constitution. 

The question, therefore, is as to whether the construction of 
levees and the prevention thereby of floods in the Mississippi Valley 
may justly be regarded as one means for the regulation, and as 
a necessary incident thereof, the protection of interstate commerce, 
and the facilities for the transportation of mails, whether by steam 
vessels engaged in the navigation of the Mississippi River or by 
railroads traversing the large area of territory embraced in what 
is known as the Mississippi Valley. 

What is generally known as the Mississippi Delta has an area 
of 29,000 square miles of territory, all of which is exposed to more 
or less serious damage bv the flooded waters of the Mississippi 
River. The Delta comprises portions of seven of the States. Some¬ 
thing like 1,000,000 people reside in this Delta. Many railroads 
traverse it, and many villages and a number of considerable towns 
or cities are located within its area, and a very extensive inter¬ 
course through interstate commerce and the postal business of the 
Government is carried on between the inhabitants of this Delta and 
the States of this Union. 

The serious attention of Congress was directed to the magnitude 
of the interests centered in this Delta and to the great possibili¬ 
ties of its increase in population, with consequent growth of inter¬ 
state commerce and postal business, as far back as 1879, when it created 
the Mississippi River Commission. The duties of that commission 
in the main were as follows: 

To direct and complete such surveys of said river between the 
Head of the Passes near its mouth and its headwaters and to 
make such additional surveys, examinations, and investigations, 
topographical, hydrographical, and hydrometrical, of said river 
and its tributaries as may be deemed necessary by said com¬ 
mission to carry out the objects of this act, * * * to take 

into consideration and mature such plans and estimates as will 
correct, permanently locate, and deepen the channel, and protect 
the banks of the Mississippi River; improve and give ease and 
safety to the navigation thereof; prevent destructive floods; 
promote and facilitate commerce, trade, and postal service. 

It is not worth while to discuss with any detail the question as to 
the value of the confinement of the floods of the river as a means 
to the improvement of its channel. Congress has access to the 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


81 


many reports made from that day to this by the Mississippi River 
Commission in which this question has been from time to time more 
or less discussed. It is sufficient to say that the members of the com¬ 
mission have differed in their opinions as to the efficiency of levees 
in the work of channel improvement. Some of them have steadily 
maintained that the confinement of the flood waters serves a useful 
purpose in maintaining the channel and in deepening it, and by that 
means improving it. Others have doubted whether the confinement 
of the floods would have any material effect upon the channel. Con¬ 
gress, however, has proceeded for many years upon the view of those 
who thought that the confinement of the floods operated beneficially 
in the great work of channel improvement. Large sums of money 
have been expended by the Government in the construction of levees. 
The inhabitants of the Delta have cooperated freely and actively, 
and, stated broadly, have expended considerably more than twice as 
much as the Government has in this direction. The result of it all 
is that there now exists very considerably protection from floods. It 
is the belief that ordinary floods can be substantially restrained by 
the levees as they exist. They need, however, to be greatly enlarged 
and strengthened to enable them to cope with such great floods as 
that which passed down during the last 12 months. 

The soil through which the river runs being alluvial and conse¬ 
quently very friable, the banks cave badly, and it is essential not only 
to channel improvement but to the permanence of any system of 
levees that at the worst places the banks shall be revetted to prevent 
their caving. Bank revetment, therefore, may be regarded not only 
as a feature of channel improvement, but as a feature of levee con¬ 
struction. It is within the power of Congress, under the interstate- 
commerce clause, as defined in the quotations made from the several 
opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States, too clearly it 
would seem to admit of controversy, if it chooses to accept the view 
that levee construction has a direct relation to channel improvement, 
and, therefore, to- the improvement of the navigation of the river, to 
expend money for the purpose of constructing levees. The courts 
would never deny the power of Congress to make such appropriations. 

This question must not be considered, however, purely as one affect¬ 
ing the navigation of the river. As said by Mr. Justice Nelson, in 
delivering the opinion of the court in Penn v. Wheeling & B. Bridge 
Co. (18 How., 421) : “The regulation of commerce includes inter¬ 
course and navigation.” That is to say, under the interstate-com¬ 
merce clause, Congress is not limited to questions of navigation, but 
may consider and deal with questions of intercourse as well. All of 
the members of the commission, it is believed, have been of the opinion 
that the construction of levees, leaving out of consideration entirely 
the mere question of navigation, facilitates commerce and trade. 
For example, in their report for 1885 the commission said that they 
“ promote and facilitate commerce and trade by establishing banks 
or landing places above the reach of floods upon which produce can 
be placed while awaiting shipment, and where steamboats and other 
river craft can land in times of high water.” The truth of this state¬ 
ment must be manifest. If the whole Mississippi Delta were covered 
by water there would, indeed, be no commerce upon the river at all, 
and consequently no navigation of it. 


82 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI KIVEIL 


Again, in their report for 1912, they say that levees have a certain 
degree of utility in the improvement of the channel, “ and are neces¬ 
sary to promote the interests of commerce by providing landing places 
for the interchange of traffic in times of flood and protecting the lines 
of railway behind them.” 

It is self-evident, therefore, that, leaving out of consideration en¬ 
tirely all questions relating to the mere navigation of the Mississippi 
River, Congress has the power under the interstate-commerce clause 
to construct levees as a suitable means for promoting the interests of 
commerce. 

It is submitted that if the Mississippi River was incapable of navi¬ 
gation at all, Congress would still have the power to prevent the 
escape of its flood waters by the construction of levees. In Cal. v. 
Pac. R. R. Co. (127 U. S., 39) the Supreme Court said: 

It can not at the present day be doubted that Congress, under 
the power to regulate commerce among the several States, as 
well as to provide for postal accommodations and militar}^ exi¬ 
gencies, had authority to pass these laws. The power to con¬ 
struct, or to authorize individuals or corporations to construct, 
national highways and bridges from State to State is essential 
to the complete control and regulation of interstate commerce. 
Without authority in Congress to establish and maintain such 
highways and bridges it would be without authority to regulate 
one of the most important adjuncts of commerce. This power 
in former times was exerted to a very limited extent, the Cum¬ 
berland or National Road being the most notable instance. Its 
exertion was but little called for, as commerce was then mostly 
conducted by water and many of our statesmen entertained 
doubts as to the existence of the power to establish ways of com¬ 
munication by land. But since, in consequence of the expansion 
of the country, the multiplication of its products, and the inven¬ 
tion of railroads and locomotion by steam, land transportation 
has so vastly increased, a sounder consideration of the subject 
has prevailed and led to the conclusion that Congress has plenary 
power over the whole subject. Of course the authority of Con¬ 
gress over the Territories of the United States and its power 
to grant franchises exercisable therein are, and ever have been, 
undoubted. But the wider power was very freely exercised, 
and much to the general satisfaction, in the creation of the vast 
system of railroads connecting the East with the West, travers¬ 
ing States as well as Territories, and employing the agency of the 
State as well as Federal corporations. 

In Luxton v. North River Bridge Co. (153 U. S., 533) the fore¬ 
going excerpt was quoted with approval, and the court, among other 
things, said: 

The Congress of the United States, being empowered by the 
Constitution to regulate commerce among the several States and 
to pass all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution 
any of the powers specifically conferred, may make use of any 
proper means for that end. 

It can not be doubted that under its power to regulate commerce 
Congress itself might have provided for the construction of rail- 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 83 

roads traversing the Mississippi Delta. If it had done so it would 
unquestionably have the power to give effect to its purpose in con¬ 
structing such railroads; that is to say, it would have the power by 
any suitable means to prevent any obstruction to their operation. 
Congress may not only, under the power to regulate commerce, 
cause railroads to be constructed, but it may adopt as agents rail¬ 
roads constructed by individuals or corporations. This results from 
the power which Congress has to adopt any means which may rea¬ 
sonably be deemed necessary or proper to enable it to regulate inter¬ 
state commerce. The act of July 24, 1866, which is section 5263 
of the Revised Statutes, provides as follows: 

Any telegraph company now organized or which may here¬ 
after be organized under the laws of any State shall have the 
right to construct, maintain, and operate lines of telegraph 
through and over any portion of the public domain of the 
United States, over and along any of the military or post roads 
of the United States which have been or may hereafter be de¬ 
clared such by law, and over, under, or across the navigable 
streams or waters of the United States; but such lines of tele¬ 
graph shall be so constructed and maintained as not to obstruct 
the navigation of such streams and waters or interfere with 
the ordinary travel on such military or post roads. 

In Telegraph Co. v. Texas (105 U. S., 460) it was expressly held 
that a telegraph company which had accepted the restrictions and 
obligations indicated in this statute became an instrument of foreign 
and interstate commerce and a Government agent for the transmis¬ 
sion of messages on public business. The exact language of the 
court is as follows: 

The Western Union Telegraph Co., having accepted the re¬ 
strictions and obligations of this provision by Congress, occupies 
in Texas the position of an instrument of foreign and interstate 
commerce and of a Government agent for the transmission of 
messages on public business. 

It thus appears that it has been distinctly held that instead of 
constructing, itself, the necessary facilities for thte transaction of 
interstate commerce, it may make any private person or corporation 
its agent. Having made the Western Union Telegraph Co. an 
instrument of foreign and interstate commerce and a Government 
agent for the transmission of messages on public business, it held, 
in the case of Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Massachusetts (125 
U. S., 530), that while the telegraph company was subject to taxa¬ 
tion by the State of Massachusetts, that State could not interfere 
with or prevent the discharge of its functions as an instrument of 
foreign and interstate commerce and as a Government agent for 
the transmission of messages on public business. 

Referring to this case in the later one of Western Union Telegraph 
Co. v. Pennsylvania R. R. Co. (195 U. S., 565), the court said: 

It enforced the right given by that act and gave to the tele¬ 
graph company the protection of the national power and su¬ 
premacy, and differs only in the instance, not in the principal, 
declared in the Pensacola case. 


84 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


In the case of the United States v. Union Pacific R. R. Co. (100 
U. S., 1) it was held that the act of 1866 was not only effective 
to prevent anjj interference by a State with the operation of tele¬ 
graph companies which had accepted the provisions of that act but 
that it also affected railroad companies so as to prevent them by 
contract from excluding from their roadways any telegraph com¬ 
pany incorporated under the laws of the State that had accepted 
the provisions of that act, and desired to use their roadways for 
its line in such manner as not to interfere with the ordinary travel 
thereon. In other words, a telegraph company accepting the provi¬ 
sions of that act, having become by virtue of it an instrument of 
foreign and interstate commerce and the agent of the Government 
for the transmission of messages on public business, can not be 
prevented either by a State or by a railroad company from dis¬ 
charging its functions. The laws of the United States, when made 
in pursuance of the Constitution, being supreme, they must be effective, 
no matter by whom questioned. 

Congress has likewise and to the same effect constituted all rail¬ 
road companies whose roads are operated by steam instruments 
of foreign and interstate commerce and agents of the Government 
for the transportation of mails, thus placing them in a similar at¬ 
titude to that occupied by the Western Union Telegraph Co., as 
defined by the Supreme Court in the cases referred to. Section 5258 
of the Revised Statutes is as follows: 

Every railroad company in the United States, whose road 
is operated by steam, its successors and assigns, is hereby au¬ 
thorized to carry upon and over its roads, boats, bridges, and 
ferries, all passengers, troops, Government supplies, mails, 
freight, and other property on their way from any State to 
another State, and to receive compensation therefor, and to con¬ 
nect with roads of other States so as to form continuous lines 
for the transportation of the same to the place of destination. 
But this section shall not affect any stipulation between the Gov¬ 
ernment of the United States and any railroad company for 
transportation or fares without compensation, nor impair or 
change the conditions imposed by the terms of any act granting 
lands to any such company to aid in the construction of its 
road, nor shall it be construed to authorize any other railroad 
without authority from the State in which such railroad or 
connection may be proposed. And Congress may at any time 
alter, amend, or repeal this section. 

The effect of this statute is to confer a most valuable franchise 
upon all of the railroad companies in the United States operated 
by steam. It confers a franchise which the States could not inter¬ 
fere with if they desire to do so, as clearly held in the case of West¬ 
ern Union Telegraph Co. v. Massachusetts (125 U. S.), above cited. 
Congress therefore has appointed all railroad companies in the 
United States whose roads are operated by steam, including, of 
course, those traversing the Mississippi Delta,' instruments of foreign 
and interstate commerce and agents of the Government for the 
transportation of troops, Government supplies, and mails on their 
way from one State to another State. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


85 


Section 3964 of the Revised Statutes is in part as follows: 

What are post roads? 

The following are established post roads: 

All the waters of the United States during the time the mail 
is carried thereon. 

All railroads or parts of railroads which are now or here¬ 
after may be in operation. 

The effect of this statute is likewise to constitute all railroads 
or parts of railroads then, or which might thereafter be, in operation 
agents of the Government for the purpose of transporting the mails 
of the Government. 

The Government conducts all postal affairs itself, but in doing 
this it must employ agents. Hence the enactment of this statute, 
by which all railroads or part of railroads are constituted agents 
to assist the Government in the conduct of its postal affairs. Having 
the power, as we have shown, to appoint agents to assist it in the 
conduct of its business, it necessarily follows that it has the power 
to make these agencies effective, which includes, of course, the power 
to remove all obstructions which might affect their efficacy. So far 
as railroads are concerned, it must have the power to remove any 
obstructions which might interfere with their operation, and so with 
their ability to serve the Government in the transportation of its 
troops, supplies, and mails. 

The power of the Government to remove obstructions from inter¬ 
state commerce is not confined to its conduct by water. It has the 
same power upon the land that it has upon the water. This is 
expressly declared in the Debs case, reported in One hundred and 
fifty-eighth United States, page 564. The court quoted as follows 
from the opinion in Gilman v. Philadelphia (3 Wall., 713), to wit: 

The power to regulate commerce comprehends the control 
for that purpose and to the extent necessary of all the navigable 
waters of the United States which are accessible from a State 
other than those in which they lie. For this purpose they are 
the public property of the Nation, and subject to all the requi¬ 
site legislation by Congress. This necessarily includes the power 
to keep them open and free from any obstruction to their navi¬ 
gation, interposed by the States or otherwise; to remove such 
obstructions when they exist; and to provide by such sanctions 
as they may deem proper, against the occurrence of the evil and 
for the punishment of offenders. For these purposes Congress 
possesses all the powers which existed in the States before the 
adoption of the National Constitution, and which have always 
existed in the Parliament in England. 

It will be noted that in this Philadelphia case it was declared that 
the power to regulate commerce includes the power to keep all 
navigable waters free from any obstruction interposed by the States 
or otherwise. That is to say, no matter what the obstruction is, 
under the power to regulate commerce it can be removed. In the 
Debs case this court declared that the same rule precisely applies 
to artificial highways. After referring to the act of June 15, 1866, 


86 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


which is now section 5258 of the Revised Statutes, and which we 
have heretofore quoted, it said: 

It is said that the jurisdiction hertofore exercised by the 
National Government over highways has been in respect to 
waterways—the natural highways of the country—and not over 
artificial highways, such as railroads, but the occasion for the 
exercise by Congress of its jurisdiction over the latter is of 
recent date. Perhaps the first act of such legislation is that here¬ 
tofore referred to, of June 15, 1866, but the basis upon which 
rests its jurisdiction over artificial highways is the same as that 
which supports it over the natural highways. Both spring from 
the power to regulate commerce. 

It thus declared that the basis upon which rests the jurisdiction 
of the Government over artificial highways is the same as that 
which supports it over natural highways. This being so, it has the 
same power to remove obstructions from artificial highways engaged 
in interstate commerce or in the transmission of the mails that it 
has over natural highways, such as waterways. Upon this point 
the court said: 

Up to a recent date commerce, both interstate and interna¬ 
tional, was chiefly by water, and it is not strange that both the 
legislation of Congress and the cases in the courts have been 
principally concerned therewith. The fact that in recent years 
interstate commerce has come to be carried on mainly by rail¬ 
roads and over artificial highways has in no manner narrowed 
the scope of the constitutional provision or abridged the power 
of Congress over such commerce. On the contrary, the same 
fullness of control exists in the one case as in the other, and the 
same power to remove obstructions from the one as from the 
other. 

It will be seen that the court again said in terms that the same 
fullness of control exists as to interstate commerce carried on by rail¬ 
roads or other artificial highways which exists as to interstate com¬ 
merce when carried on by water. 

The court also said: 

The National Government, given by the Constitution power to 
regulate interstate commerce, has by express statute assumed 
jurisdiction over such commerce when carried upon railroads. 
It is charged, therefore, with the duty of keeping those high¬ 
ways of interstate commerce free from obstruction, for it has 
always been recognized as one of the powers and duties of a 
Government to remove obstructions from the highways under 
its control. 

We have given to this case the most careful attention, for 
we realize that it touches closely questions of supreme impor¬ 
tance to the people of this country. Summing up our conclu¬ 
sions, we hold that the Government of the United States is one 
having jurisdiction over every foot of soil within its territory, 
and acting directly upon each citizen; that while it is a Govern¬ 
ment of enumerated powers, it has within the limits, of those 
powers all the attributes of sovereignty; that to it is committed 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


87 


power over interstate commerce and the transmission of the 
mail; that the powers thus conferred upon the National Govern¬ 
ment are not dormant, but have been assumed and put into prac¬ 
tical exercise bv the legislation of Congress; that in the exercise 
of those powers it is competent for the Nation to remove all 
obstructions upon highways, natural or artificial, to the passage 
of interstate commerce or the carrying of the mail. 

It adjudged that Congress, under the power to regulate interstate 
commerce, and the power to establish post offices and post roads, may 
remove all obstructions to the passage of interstate commerce or the 
carrying of the mails, whether over natural highways or artificial 
highways. Of course, the court was not speaking of obstructions 
which a railroad company might itself remove. Obstructions of that 
nature it is required to remove as a part of its duties. If (as to which 
there can be no question) the flooding of the Mississippi Valley by 
the surplus waters of the Mississippi River obstructs interstate com¬ 
merce and the transmission of the mails by means of the railroads 
running through the valley of the river, Congress has the power to 
remove that obstruction, and that obstruction can only be removed by 
confining the flood waters by means of levees. There is no limitation 
defining what obstructions can be removed and there is no limitation 
as to the means by which obstructions may be removed. If the 
method adopted for the removal of obstructions bears any just rela¬ 
tion to the power of Congress, what it adjudges by law to be an 
obstruction and what it adjudges to be a suitable means of removing 
that obstruction, can not be questioned by the courts or otherwise. 

The great extent of the Mississippi Valley has already been indi¬ 
cated. An enormous interstate commerce is now carried on between 
those who inhabit that valley and those residing in other States, 
and its capacity for developing still greater interstate commerce is 
such that at this time no fair limitation can be placed upon it. So 
as to the business of the Government with those residing in the valley 
in supplying them with mail facilities and in supplying those resid¬ 
ing in other States with the necessary mail facilities for transacting 
their business with the inhabitants of the valley. The interstate 
commerce and postal affairs connected with the Mississippi Valley 
are so great that it may be truthfully said that they are matters of 
concern to the people of the Nation at large. 

It is respectfully submitted that, disregarding entirely all ques¬ 
tions as to the navigation of the Mississippi River and all questions 
arising from the statutes above referred to, conferring franchises 
upon railroad companies whose lines extend through the valley, and 
creating them post roads, by which they have been constituted agents 
of the Government, there must be the power in Congress, under the 
interstate-commerce clause, to remove the great obstruction to this 
enormous interstate commerce and this enormous postal business 
arising from the flood waters of the Mississippi River. In Gibbon v. 
Ogden (9 Wheat,, 1), Chief Justice Marshall said: 

Commerce undoubtedly is traffic, but it is something more; 
it is intercourse. It describes the commercial intercourse be¬ 
tween nations and parts of nations in all of its branches, and is 
regulated by prescribing rules for carrying on that business. 


88 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

In McCail v. California (136 U. S., 104), the Supreme Court 
said: 

Commerce includes the fact of intercourse and of traffic and 
the subject matter of intercourse and traffic. The fact of inter¬ 
course and traffic, again, embraces all the means, instruments, 
and places by and in which intercourse and traffic are carried on, 
and, further still, comprehends the act of carrying them on at 
these places and by and with these means. The subject matter 
of intercourse or traffic may be either things, goods, chattels, 
merchandise, or persons. 

In Mobile County v. Kimball (102 U. S., 691) the court said: 

Commerce with foreign countries and among the States, 
strictly considered, consists in intercourse and traffic, including 
in these terms navigation and the transporting and transacting 
of business and property, as well as the purchase, sale, and ex¬ 
change of commodities. 

Although the effect of confining the flood waters of the Mississippi 
River may result in great financial benefit to the owners of lands 
and of other property in the Mississippi Valley, yet if the escape of 
the flood waters does seriously affect this enormous interstate com¬ 
merce and this enormous postal business, there can be no question 
as to the power of the Government to preserve it and protect it from 
destruction, in toto at times, in parts of the Mississippi Valley, and 
partially with almost every flood, and if this protection can only 
be afforded by the construction of levees, the power of the Govern¬ 
ment to construct those levees for that purpose would seem to be 
beyond question. 

If the Government has not this power, then this protection can not 
be afforded at all except to a very limited extent. The preservation 
of the valley from the devastation created by these floods calls for 
some definite s.ystem of levee construction which shall operate equally 
and with the same effect in all parts of the valley. Recognizing 
this necessity, it is provided bv the bill that all money which may 
be contributed for the construction of levees shall be expended under 
the direction of the Mississippi River Commission and in such man¬ 
ner as it may require or approve. 

All that has been said in this memorandum relates entirely to the 
question as to the naked power of the Government to make appro¬ 
priations for the construction of levees. As already stated, the bill 
authorizes the construction of levees to prevent floods, but it does not 
declare the purpose which Congress has in mind in seeking the pre¬ 
vention of floods. Therefore, if the appropriations sought should be 
made and any question should be raised as to their constitutionality, 
the courts would decline to adjudge that the expenditure of money 
for the construction of levees is unconstitutional if that expenditure 
can be made under any power vested in the Government by the Con¬ 
stitution. The purpose of this memorandum is solely to maintain 
the bill as invoking a power that, under the Constitution, the Govern¬ 
ment may lawfully exercise. 


T. C. Catchings. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 89 

Mr. Blanchard’s Argument. 

I have stated that there was ample constitutional authority for 
Congress to do this. Let us now examine a little into that question. 

An enemy invades us. Our people fly to arms. Points of defense 
are strengthened. The eye of strategy selects other points to be for¬ 
tified and defended. Congress votes the money, and immediately 
long lines of breastworks guard our frontier where attack is appre¬ 
hended. 

But here is an enemy who comes in the form of raging waters, 
sweeping down in resistless might from the North upon the sunny 
valleys of the West and South, bringing devastation, destruction, 
death. He raids through the country, rioting in ruin; and millions, 
panic stricken, flee at his approach, leaving their all to be swallowed 
up in the wild vortex of destruction. The wasting presence lasts but 
a couple of months, but in that time there has been a destruction of 
property, present and prospective, equal in value to many millions of 
dollars. 

It is the duty of Congress to say to these people who have so often 
experienced the disasters of inundation that, even as we would erect 
breastworks on our frontier to repel the threatened invasion of a war¬ 
like foe, so will we build levees along the great river to beat back its 
surging waters, threatening destruction well-nigh equal to what a 
human enemy could inflict. 

But, it may be argued, the delegation of power to Congress to 
“ repel invasions,” “ to protect the States against invasion,” has refer¬ 
ence to a human foe. I grant that is the usual and ordinary mean¬ 
ing or significance given to the term, and it is likely that the framers 
of the Constitution had in contemplation a human foe when they in¬ 
serted that clause. The connection, too, in which it is used gives 
additional weight to that argument. 

But still, the power conferred by the words “ repel invasions,” by 
the clause “ The United States * * * shall protect each of them 

(the States) against invasion,” is a general one, and might w^ell and 
reasonably include defending the country against danger or harm of 
any kind. 

Suppose some monster, like the fabled dragon of ancient times, 
were to rise up out of the deep and invade the land, spreading dev¬ 
astation, destruction, pestilence, and death around him. Does any¬ 
one doubt the constitutional powder and duty of Congress to “ repel ” 
his invasion, to bring the strong arm of the Government to bear 
against him, to make war upon and kill and destroy him? I think 
not. And yet, sir, there are gentlemen on this floor who deny to 
Congress the power to “ repel ” the invasion of waters, to throttle 
this monster of inundation whose periodical visitation of the fairest 
portion of our country is but the recurring occasion for a perfect 
carnival of waste, ruin, rapine. 

It is the duty of Congress to protect the States, or any one of 
them, against invasion. By “invasion” is meant against harm or 
danger to the Government, the people, the country, threatened by 
an enemy. An enemy is only to be dreaded because of the suffering, 
destruction, death he may inflict. Judged by that standard, was not 
the recent great overflow in the alluvial basin of the Mississippi 


90 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


“ an enemy ”? None will deny its potency as an engine of suffering, 
destruction, and death. Why, then, can not Congress under this 
clause of the Constitution protect the Valley States against a recur¬ 
rence of this “ invasion ” of waters ? 

Again, it is made the constitutional duty of Congress to protect 
each of the States, under certain conditions, against “ domestic vio¬ 
lence.” Why not against the violence of domestic waters? I say 
“ domestic waters ” for the reason that it is a fact that all the water 
which seeks an outlet to the sea through the Mississippi is the drain¬ 
age of the territory of the United States, and in that sense is domestic, 
as pertaining to home; not foreign. 

REGULATING THE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The Constitution (Art. IV, sec. 3) provides: 

That Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all 
needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other 
property belonging to the United States. 

In the Gratiot case (II Peters, 537) the Supreme Court of the 
United States, construing the above clause, said: 

“ The term ‘territory,’ as here used, is merely descriptive of 
one kind of property, and is equivalent to the word ‘ lands.’ 
And Congress has the same power over it as over any other 
property belonging to the United States; and this power is 
vested in Congress without limitation.” 

In the case of McCulloch v. Maryland (4 Wheaton, 422) the Chief 
Justice, as the organ of the court, speaking of this clause of the Con¬ 
stitution and the powers of Congress growing out of it, applies it to 
territorial governments, and says all admit their constitutionality. 

Story says (vol. 2, p. 228) : 

No one has ever doubted the authority of Congress to erect 
territorial governments within the territory of the United 
States, under the general language of the clause “ to make all 
needful rules and regulations.” 

He continues: 

The power is not confined to the territory of the United 
States, but extends to “ other property belonging to the United 
States”; so that it may be applied to the due regulation of all 
other personal and real property rightfully belonging to the 
United States. And so it has been constantly understood and 
acted on. 

Now, then, if the Mississippi is the property of the General Gov¬ 
ernment, it is as much subject to “ regulation ” as the landed prop¬ 
erty or territory of the United States. And this power to regulate 
includes curbing, controlling, restraining the river within its own 
proper metes and bounds bv means of levees, dikes, or other works, 
as Congress may. in its discretion, see proper to adopt; for, in the 
language of the Gratiot case, “ this power is vested in Congress with¬ 
out limitation.” 

But it may be denied that the Mississippi River is the property 
of the United States in the sense that Congress may, under the 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


91 


power to regulate, direct the construction of works to restrain its 
waters within their proper channel. The Mississippi River is a 
great national highway. 

It belongs as much to the United States as would a great trunk line 
of railroad that had been constructed, stocked, and was being oper¬ 
ated by the Government. In the act of Congress enabling the people 
of Louisiana to form a constitution there is a provision that the 
State convention shall “ pass an ordinance providing that the River 
Mississippi and the navigable rivers and waters leading into the 
same or into the Gulf of Mexico shall be common highways and for¬ 
ever free, as well to the inhabitants of the said State as to other 
citizens of the United States,” And in the act for the admission of 
Louisiana the above provision as to the navigation of the Mississippi 
is made one of the fundamental conditions of the admission. Similar 
conditions were likewise imposed upon the admission of the States of 
Mississippi, Missouri, and Arkansas. 

In the case of The United States v. The New Bedford Bridge 
(Woodbury & Minot’s Report, 421), Mr. Justice Woodbury used the 
following language: 

^ For purposes of foreign commerce and of that from State to 
State, the navigable rivers of the whole country seem to me to be 
within the jurisdiction of the General Government, with all the 
powers over them for such purposes (whenever they choose to 
exercise them) which existed previously in the States or now 
exist with Parliament in England. 

In the case of Corfield v. Coryell (4 Washington Circuit Court 
Reports, 379), Mr. Justice Washington said: 

The grant to Congress to regulate commerce on the navigable 
waters belonging to the several States renders those waters the 
public property of the United States for all purposes of naviga¬ 
tion and commercial intercourse, subject only to congressional 
regulation. 

And in the case of Gilman v. Philadelphia (3 Wallace, 724), it 
was said: 

The power to regulate commerce comprehends the control for 
(hat purpose, and to the extent necessary, of all the navigable 
waters of the United States which are accessible from a State 
other than those in which they lie. For this purpose they are the 
public property of the Nation and subject to all the requisite 
legislation of Congress. This necessarily includes the power 
to keep them open and free from any obstruction to their navi¬ 
gation, interposed by the States or otherwise; to remove such 
obstructions when they exist; and to provide by such sanctions 
as they may deem proper against the recurrence of the evil and 
for the punishment of offenders. For these purposes Con¬ 
gress possesses all the powers which existed in the States before 
the adoption of the National Constitution and which have always 
existed in the Parliament in England. It is for Congress to 
determine when its full power shall be brought into activity, and 
as to the regulations and sanctions which shall be provided. 

It can not, therefore, be doubted that the river, for all practical 
purposes, is the property of the General Government and subject to 


92 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


its “regulation,” whether as respects prescribing rules for govern¬ 
ing the commerce and traffic which make use of it as a highway or 
as respects controlling it in the sense of denying the dominion and 
jurisdiction of the States or other powers, or as respects preventing 
the river from rising up out of its customary channel and spreading 
over the country. It is true the banks of the river and soil under 
the river belong, respectively, to the owners of the soil adjacent to 
the river, but no one will deny to the General Government the right 
to make use of the banks and soil in the erection of the works requi¬ 
site to the proper “regulation” of the river for all useful purposes. 
Should, however, this right be questioned there can be no doubt of 
the power of the Government in the exercise of the prerogative of 
eminent domain to expropriate whatever may be needed for the 
proper “ regulation ” of the river. 

The law on this subject is universally recognized, as laid down by 
Bynkershoek, that “ this eminent domain may be lawfully exercised 
whenever public necessity or public utility requires it.” 

It may be objected by some that the Federal Government provide 
the ways and means for the construction of a levee system for the 
protection of the alluvial valley of the river, and as an adjunct to the 
improvement of its navigation, inasmuch as these levees will have 
to be constructed on the banks over which the jurisdiction of the 
States respectively extend, contention may arise between the State 
government and the National Government on this point; that the 
State government might deny the right of the National Government 
to control the levees, to protect them after constructing them, and 
that the question thus raised may become a fruitful source of trouble 
between the sovereignty vested in the State and that reposing in the 
Federal Government. 

I am not one of those who apprehend that any trouble on this 
score would ever arise, but as a precautionary measure Congress 
might, if it sees fit, after having determined upon a levee system, 
enact that there should be no expenditure of money for such pur¬ 
poses within the territorial limits of a State until the State shall 
have ceded to the National Government the right to control and 
protect the public works to be constructed. 

The State which I have the honor to represent in part in the Con¬ 
gress of the United States has already led off in that direction. In 
the constitutional convention of Louisiana which convened in 1879, 
and which framed the organic law under which that State is now 
governed, I, as a member of the convention, and as chairman of its 
committee on Federal relations, acting on the suggestion of Hon. 
E. W. Robertson, then a Representative in Congress from the sixth 
district of Louisiana, and chairman of the Committee on Levees and 
Improvements of the Mississippi of the House, reported to the con¬ 
vention the following ordinance, which was adopted, and now stands 
as part of article 215 of the constitution of 1879 of Louisiana, to wit: 

The Federal Government is authorized to make such geologi¬ 
cal, topographical, hydrographical, and hydrometrical surveys 
and investigations within the State as may be necessary to carry 
into effect the act of Congress to provide for the appointment of 
a Mississippi River commission for the improvement of said river 
from the Head of the Passes near its mouth to the headwaters, 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 93 

and to construct and protect such public works and improve¬ 
ments as may be ordered by Congress under the provisions of 
said act. 

Under this article full authority is given the National Government 
to construct such public works along the Mississippi as Congress may 
see fit to order, and the control of the same after their construction 
is ceded to the National Government. 

The State of Louisiana, in incorporating this grant of authority in 
her organic law, recognized what is now generally conceded, namely, 
that there is no power competent to handle the question presented by 
this great river except that of the Federal Government. No State can 
do it— 

First. Because the work is too vast, too costly, for any State 
through which the river runs to undertake it. 

Second. Because any State attempting it would be circumscribed 
by its own territorial limits. 

Third. Because the river being the property of the United States, 
Congress alone has power, under the grant to “ make all needful rules 
and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging 
to the United States,’’ to say what works shall be done or plans 
adopted for its regulation. 

POST OFFICES AND POST ROADS. 

Under the authority “ to establish post offices and post roads ” the 
Government of the United States has established thousands of the 
former in the alluvial valleys of the Mississippi and its tributaries, 
and provided a perfect network of the latter. Daily over thousands 
of miles of roadway and railway and waterway in the great valley 
is the United States mail carried, supplying innumerable post offices 
and affording facilities indispensable for the dissemination of intelli¬ 
gence, for the diffusion of the market reports, the crop and commer¬ 
cial reports, and the news generally so absolutely needed for the wel¬ 
fare, the happiness, and the prosperity of the people and the country. 

Millions of money, besides great labor and much valuable time, 
have been expended in building up and perfecting this system, which 
in the normal state of the country moves with the precision, ease, 
and regularity of well-ordered machinery. But periodically the great 
river swells up out of its banks and becomes a great inland sea, pro¬ 
ducing an abnormal condition of affairs and disarranging, stopping, 
destroying for the time being the postal service—the transportation 
and delivery of the mails. 

On our statute books, as the enactments of Congress stand, strin¬ 
gent penal laws denouncing penalties against any and all who shall 
willfully impede, interfere with, or stop the mails; and the courts 
of the United States hold sittings all over the valley to enforce these 
laws. But here is a great convulsion of nature, as it were, that stops 
not one mail but a thousand, that breaks up not one post office but 
hundreds, and against which the courts and the criminal laws for 
the protection and security of the mails avail nothing. But to pre¬ 
vent a recurrence of this is the strong arm of the Government power¬ 
less? No. Scientific, wise, experienced men who have made a study 
of the river and its phenomena, of the laws of its currents, and of the 

30573°—H. Rep. 300, 63-2, pt 2-7 


94 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


conditions that affect it, say no. They have pointed out how these 
destructive floods can be avoided, and thus how the mails of the 
United States, their carriage and delivery, can be protected. 

Now, then, does anyone doubt that from the authority “to estab¬ 
lish post offices and post roads” flows not only the power but the 
duty to protect them? No reasonable man can doubt it. No lawyer 
will hesitate for an instant to declare that the power to protect is 
incidental to the power to establish. The constitutionality of the 
laws denouncing penalties against the stoppage of, or interference 
with, the mails has never been doubted. Yet they were enacted for 
the protection of the mails and depend for their validity upon the 
power to protect being incidental to the power to establish. Says 
the Supreme Court of the United States in 4 Wheaton, 417: 

This power is executed by the single act of making the estab¬ 
lishment. But from this has been inferred the power and duty 
of carrying the mail along the post road from one post office 
to another. And from this implied power has again been in¬ 
ferred the right to punish those who steal letters from the post 
office or rob the mail. It may be said with some plausibility 
that the right to carry the mail and to punish those who rob it 
is not indispensably necessary to the establishment of a post 
office and post road. This right is indeed essential to the bene¬ 
ficial exercise of the power, but not indispensably necessary to its 
existence. 

Yet no one doubts or denies the right or power of the Govern¬ 
ment to punish the robber of the mails. Now, then, is it not just 
as legitimate, just as constitutional, to protect against the ravages 
of water as against the knavery of the robber? 

TO REGULATE COMMERCE. 

The power of Congress to regulate commerce includes the 
regulation of intercourse and navigation (18 Howard, 421). 

Says Story (vol. 2, p. 4) : 

Commerce undoubtedly is traffic; but it is something more. 
It is intercourse. It describes the commercial intercourse be¬ 
tween nations and parts of nations in all its branches and is 
regulated by prescribing rules for carrying on that intercourse. 

This power to regulate commerce is a very general one, and a wide 
latitude of construction has been given it. 

If a levee system tends in any appreciable degree to afford ease 
and safety to commerce, to intercourse which is essential to the carry¬ 
ing on of commerce, then an appropriation of money by Congress to 
construct such a system finds abundant justification in this grant of 
power. 

The Mississippi River Commission, in their report of February 
17, 1880, say regarding levees: 

There is no doubt that the levees exert a direct action in 
deepening the channel and enlarging the bed of the river during 
those periods of “ rise ” and “ flood ” when, by preventing the 
dispersion of the flood waters over the‘adjacent lowlands, either 
over the river banks or through bayous and other openings, 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 95 

they actually cause the river to rise to a higher level within the 
river bed than it would attain if not thus restrained. 

They give safety and ease to navigation, and promote and 
facilitate commerce and trade by establishing banks or landing 
places above the reach of the floods upon which produce can be 
placed while awaiting shipment and where steamboats and other 
craft can land in time of high water. * * * In a larger 

sense as embracing not only beneficial results upon the channel, 
but a protection against destructive floods, a levee system is 
essential, and such a system also promotes and facilitates com¬ 
merce, trade, and the Postal Service. 

To the same effect are the subsequent reports of the commission 
and the statements of the individual members thereof before the 
committees of Congress. 

Prior to the act creating this commission a board of engineers 
was appointed on the improvement of the low-water navigation of 
the river below Cairo, Ill. In their report to the Chief of Engineers, 
dated January 25, 1879, on the “effect of a permanent levee system 
on the Mississippi below the mouth of the Ohio River,” they say: 

To deal with the question whether there is any connection 
between levees and facilities for shipping, commerce, and navi¬ 
gation at high stages, we refer to the actual condition of things. 
We find that throughout all the extension of the Mississippi 
along which the levee system is practically efficient, and where 
the marginal lands are generally cleared and cultivated, the 
levees have been an important aid to commerce. Below the 
mouth of the Arkansas, as far down as the forts below New 
Orleans, the levees have been long enough in existence to give 
evidence of their effect, direct and indirect. Immediately behind 
them are the cultivated lands, the plantations whence come 
sugar, cotton, and other valuable staples. To each one of 
these plantations not only is the levee the protecting agent which 
renders their cultivation practicable, but it is during floods the 
landing place of the steamboats, barges, or flatboats which bring 
their supplies and carry their productions away. * * * 

In the lower river, through the regions where the margins are 
under cultivation, the levees are generally laid close to these 
margins, and afford, as has already been stated, useful facilities 
for commerce in making practicable the coming alongside of 
steamers and the receiving of the products of the plantations and 
discharging freights for the use of the same or for the back 
country. In ordinary rises the natural banks are not overflowed, 
but when that happens in “ flood ” years they (the levees) serve 
a purpose in still defining the channel. 

From testimony like this it can not be doubted that levees aid not 
only in improving the navigation of the river, but are themselves 
factors in the giving of ease and safety to commercial intercourse. 

If the Federal Government can legitimately spend millions in 
affording facilities to commerce by improving the low-water naviga¬ 
tion of rivers, by parity of reasoning it may just as legitimately 
spend millions in improving the high-water navigation of rivers like 
the Mississippi, liable to overflow their banks. And the weight of 


96 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI EIVEB. 


evidence ten times over is that for the Mississippi and its tributaries 
a levee system is the most efficient method of improving their high- 
water navigation. 

By the navigation of rivers is meant not alone the passage of 
steamers and other craft up and down, but in a larger sense it includes 
likewise facilities for landing along the rivers for the loading and 
unloading of cargoes, the taking on and putting off of passengers, 
etc. In other words, it embraces the affording of all needful facilities 
for intercourse, trade, traffic, and commerce, besides the width, depth, 
and extent of water requisite for the safe passage of boats. 

Again, navigation is only one of the elements of commerce. It is 
an element of commerce because it affords the means of transporting 
merchandise and the products of the country, the interchange of which 
is commerce itself. The river is but an instrument of commerce. 

The power to regulate commerce is a power to regulate the 
instruments of commerce. (Gray v. Clinton Bridge, 16 American 
Law Register, 152.) 

It extends to the persons who conduct it, as well as to the 
instruments used. (Cooley v. Board of Wardens, 12 Howard, 
316.) 

The commerce of the river and the commerce across the river 
are both commerce among the States, and may be regulated by 
Congress, and should be regulated by that body when any regu¬ 
lation is necessary. (16 American Law Register, 154.) 

It is now conceded that Congress, under the commercial clause, 
may regulate railroads. May it not also regulate the Mississippi, 
a national highway and an instrument which commerce makes use 
of, so as to prevent it disturbing the commerce and intercourse go¬ 
ing on by rail and by land in its valley ? 

The term “to regulate commerce” gives the power to restrain 
the destructive force of the thing used by commerce in its trans¬ 
actions. It is an incongruity to say that Congress, in the exercise of 
that power, may deepen or enlarge a river, but can not curb its force 
or exercise restraint over it. 

The power “ to regulate commerce ” necessarily includes protec¬ 
tion to commerce. This idea has been acted on from the commence¬ 
ment of the Government. The construction and maintenance all 
along our coasts of lighthouses, beacon lights, fog signals, sea walls, 
and breakwaters attest this. All are for the protection and con¬ 
venience of commerce. 

The laws of the United States require steam vessels to pay for 
the license or privilege to navigate, and the officers manning such 
vessels are required to pay for the license or privilege of pursuing 
their respective calling or vocation, such as master, pilot, mate, etc. 

These vessels engage in the coasting trade as well as in carry¬ 
ing trade, and Congress is as much under obligation to afford the 
needful facilities for the transaction of this coasting trade as it is 
for the transportation of through freights. One of the facilities 
needed along the Mississippi for the coasting trade is convenient 
landing places at all times. 

In seasons of flood these landing places are supplied by the levees, 
and in this season levees are but continuing piers or quays. A quay 
is defined to be a space of ground appropriated to the" public use, 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 97 

such use as the convenience of commerce requires. Now, while the 
levees perform this service, while they furnish these needed conven¬ 
iences to commerce, should it be objected that, at the same time, they 
protect the country behind them from overflow ? Suppose they do 
protect private property while performing a public service, should 
they not be commended all the more for that? Should not that cir¬ 
cumstance really be an additional inducement or argument for their 
construction ? 

Should not broad and liberal statesmanship, in considering a ques¬ 
tion of this sort, rather approve of a system which, while subserving 
the public interests, at the same time affords needed protection to the 
life and property of the individual? Solus populi suprema lex. 
Protection to private property in some way results from nearly every 
work of public import. If a street in a town or city be graded, 
paved, or macadamized, the property belonging to individuals on 
that street experience an enhancement of value as the result of such 
improvement. 

Every railroad constructed through a country increases the value 
of the lands adjacent thereto. Every grand, imposing public build¬ 
ing erected in this city (Washington), and every park laid out, 
beautified, adorned, adds something to the worth of neighboring 
private estates. 

This question of regulating the Mississippi certainly comes within 
the general police power of the Government, under which power 
“persons and property are subjected to all. kinds of restraint and 
burdens in order to secure the general comfort, health, and prosperity 
of the State.” (27 Vt., 149; quoted approvingly in 5 Otto, 471.) In 
the latter case the Supreme Court, speaking of the deposit in Con¬ 
gress of the power to regulate commerce, say: 

What that power is it is difficult to define with sharp pre¬ 
cision. It is generally said to extend to making regulations pro¬ 
motive of domestic order, morals, health ? and safety. As was 
said in Thorp v. The Rutland and Burlington Railroad Com¬ 
pany (27 Vt., 149), it extends to the protection of the lives, 
limbs, health, comfort, and quiet of all persons, and the protec¬ 
tion of all property within the State. According to the maxim, 
Sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas , which, being of universal 
application, it must of course be within the range of legislative 
action to define the mode and manner in which everyone may so 
use his own as not to injure others. 

If the Government fails to exercise its police powers to control its 
property, and this property, like a great river, rises and inundates 
the country, and great damage to individuals results, the Govern¬ 
ment is, or ought to be, responsible. 

Take the case of an Indian tribe placed by the Government upon a 
reservation and over which it exercises jurisdiction and surveillance. 
From some cause an outbreak occurs. The Indians throw off the 
restraint they are under, band themselves together, commence hos¬ 
tilities, and raid the surrounding country. For the damage and loss 
occasioned individuals by such an outbreak the Government has re¬ 
peatedly acknowledged its liability, and Congress has over and over 
again appropriated money to make good such losses. 


98 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


Now, why should it not be equally responsible for losses occasioned 
by the Mississippi when it, in time of flood, raids the adjacent coun¬ 
try? The Government not only assumes paramount jurisdiction 
over the river, but asserts a proprietary interest in and to it. 

Why, then, should it not be under obligations to restrain and con¬ 
trol it equal to the restraint and control it admits it should exercise 
over an Indian tribe placed by it under a reservation? 

If a railroad train kills the stock of a man a suit lies to enforce 
payment of the value of the stock from the company. But the great 
Mississippi rises, and, by the neglect of the Government to protect 
its banks by dikes, overflows, causing the destruction of millions in 
value of property. No suit against the Government can be filed, 
for this great and free Republic does not permit what the veriest 
despotisms of foreign lands allow, namely, the general right to its 
citizens to sue the Government in any court of competent jurisdic¬ 
tion for injuries sustained by the act of commission or omission of 
the Government. 

The first clause of section 8, Article I, of the Constitution pre¬ 
scribed that “ Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, 
duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the 
common defense and general welfare of the United States.” 

I agree with the interpretation that the above clause was not in¬ 
tended to invest Congress with the independent and general power 
“ to provide for the general welfare; ” and that the latter part of the 
clause, to wit, “ to pay the debts and provide for the common defense 
and general welfare,” is but a modification or qualification of the 
preceding part, namely, “ Congress shall have power to lay and col¬ 
lect taxes,” etc. 

Nothing more was granted by that part—“to pay the debts and 
provide for the common defense and general welfare ”—than a power 
to appropriate the public money raised under the other part—“to 
lay taxes ”—etc. 

Said Thomas Jefferson: 

To lay taxes to provide for the general welfare of the United 
States is to lay taxes for the purpose of providing for the gen¬ 
eral welfare. For the laying of taxes is the power and the 
general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exer¬ 
cised. Congress are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose 
they please, but only to pay debts or provide for the welfare of 
the Union. 

Under this interpretation, while a general power to legislate for 
the “general welfare” is excluded, Congress is still authorized to 
provide money for the common defense and general welfare, and this 
is quite broad enough for the practical purpose we have in view. 
Indeed, the power to lay taxes is in express terms given to provide 
for the common defense and general welfare. And, as laid down by 
Story: 

It is not pretended that when the tax is laid the specific ob¬ 
jects for which it is laid are to be specified or that it is to be 
solely applied to those objects. 

It suffices that all taxes must generally be laid for one or all of 
three purposes, namely, to pay the debts, to provide for the common 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI EIVEE. 99 

defense, or the general welfare. And when the money has accumu¬ 
lated in the Treasury from taxes laid for any or all of these purposes, 
as said by President Monroe in his message of May 4, 1822: 

The power of appropriation of the moneys (by Congress) is 
coextensive; that is, it may be appropriated to any purpose of 
the common defense and general welfare. 

In other words, if operating under the latter clause, the taxes laid 
must be applied to some particular measure conducive to the general 
welfare. Or, as laid down by Story, volume 2, page 162: 

The only limitations upon the power (to appropriate money in 
aid of internal improvements) are those prescribed by the terms 
of the Constitution, that the objects shall be for the common 
defense or the general welfare of the Union. 

The true test is whether the object be of a local character 
and local use, or whether it be of general benefit to the States. 
If it be purely local, Congress can not constitutionally appro¬ 
priate money for the object. But if the benefit be general, it 
matters not whether in point of locality it be in one State or 
several, whether it be of large or of small extent; its nature 
and character determine the right, and Congress may appro¬ 
priate money in aid of it, for it is then in a just sense for the 
general welfare. 

It is not only right, but the bounden and solemn duty of Congress 
to advance the safety, happiness and prosperity of the people, and 
to provide for the general welfare by any and every act of legisla¬ 
tion, within constitutional limits, which it may deem to be conducive' 
to those ends. No one will have the temerity to question the propo¬ 
sition that the protection of the extensive alluvial valley of the Mis¬ 
sissippi from destructive floods will be, in the national sense of that 
term, conducive to the general welfare. Not one State, but a dozen; 
not a few thousand people, but millions, are directly interested and 
affected for weal or woe according as this protection is extended or 
withheld. One overflow, as hereinbefore stated, lias caused the de¬ 
struction of many million dollars’ worth of property, without taking 
into consideration the human and animal suffering and death in¬ 
flicted by it. Does any sane man doubt that providing against the 
recurrence of such a public calamity is promoting the general wel¬ 
fare ? 

But it is unnecessary to dwell upon this. The point is conceded. 
No man of reflection will gaihsay that if it were to the general wel¬ 
fare that we should acquire this territory, as we did, from France, 
it is equally conducive to the general welfare to preserve it as a 
habitable, cultivable country; to protect it against relegation to its 
primeval condition of jungles and swamps. The words of Chief 
Justice Bigelow, of Massachusetts, in the case of Talbott v. Hud¬ 
son (24 Law Reports, 228), are here singularly appropriate: 

In a broad and comprehensive view * * * everything 

which tends to enlarge the resources, increase the industrial 
energies, and promote the productive power of any considerable 
number of the inhabitants of a section of the State [Union], or 
which leads to the growth of towns and the creation of new 


100 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


sources for the employment of private capital and labor, indi¬ 
rectly contributes to the general welfare and to the prosperity 
of the whole community. 

Congress has exercised, not without question, it is true, but long 
enough for acquiescence to take place, the power to lay taxes to pro¬ 
tect and encourage domestic manufactures. 

This has been and is being done on the ground that it is conducive 
to the general welfare to protect and encourage domestic manufac¬ 
tures. But it is not one whit more conducive to the general welfare* 
if as much so, than protecting the finest portion of our country for 
cultivable purposes is. 

All must admit that the powers of the Government are limited and 
that its limits are not to be transcended. But, as was observed by 
the Supreme Court of the United States in 4 Wheaton, 421, the sound 
construction of the Constitution must allow the National Legisla¬ 
ture that discretion, with respect to the means by which the powers 
it confers are to be carried into execution, which will enable that body 
to perform the high duties assigned to it in the manner most beneficial 
to the people. 

Let the end be legitimate., let it be within the scope of the Con¬ 
stitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly 
adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with 
the letter and spirit of the Constitution, are constitutional, 
(ib.) 

In McCulloch v. Maryland (4 Wheaton, 415) Chief Justice Mar¬ 
shall aptly referred to the Constitution as “ intended to endure for 
ages to come, and consequently to be adapted to the various crises of 
human affairs.” 

And in Hunter v. Martin (1 Wheaton, 304) it was said: 

The instrument [Constitution] was not intended to provide 
merely for the exigencies of a few years, but was to endure 
through a long lapse of ages, the events of which were locked up 
in the inscrutable purposes of Providence. It could not be fore¬ 
seen what new changes and modifications of power might be in¬ 
dispensable to effectuate the general objects of the charter. 
* * * Hence its powers are expressed in general terms, leav¬ 

ing the legislature, from time to time, to adopt its ow T n means to 
effectuate legitimate objects, and to mold and model the exercise 
of its powers as its own wisdom and the public interests should 
require. 

Then the great Father of Waters, unhindered by an adequate levee 
system, rises out of its banks and sweeps with resistless might over 
the valley, a more than crisis, a sad realization of the worst, is upon 
the people of that unhappy section, and this grievous affliction of one 
of the members of the body politic in more or less degree disastrously 
affects the whole. Against the recurrence of the lilte calamity, na¬ 
tional in its effect, we ask the aid of the National Government. We 
hold that the powers delegated in general terms in the Constitution 
are broad and comprehensive enough to justify it, that the granting 
of national aid for Such purpose is directly in the line of the effectua¬ 
tion of the legitimate objects of the charter. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


101 


Says Story (Vol. I, p. 655): 

Constitutions of governments are not to be framed upon a cal¬ 
culation of existing exigencies, but upon a combination of these 
with the probable exigencies of ages, according to the natural 
and tried course of human affairs. " There ought to be a capacity 
to provide for future contingencies as they may happen. 

That this capacity exists in the Federal Constitution no one will 
deny. The trials it has undergone, the tests it has been put to and 
triumphantly emerged from, in the hundred years of its existence,, 
abundantly attest it. Let Congress give another evidence of this 
capacity by providing against the contingency of another great over¬ 
flow ; let this provision be ample and unrestricted; let it meet the case. 


Appendix A. 


FLOOD CONTROL OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


Address by Col. C. McD. Townsend, United States Army, at Memphis, Tenn., 
September 26, 1912. 

Mr. President and gentlemen, when such a disaster occurs as has 
swept over the Mississippi Valley within the last few months, it 
arouses the intellectual activity of our people, and many suggestions 
are made of the means of preventing its recurrence. 

As president of the Mississippi River Commission, I have re¬ 
ceived numerous communications, some addressed to the President 
of the United States, the Secretary of War, or the Chief of Engi¬ 
neers, attempting to explain the causes of this great flood, or giving 
the writer’s views of the mistakes which have been made by the 
Mississippi River Commission in handling it. 

The Mississippi River Commission has explained with great de¬ 
tail in its reports its reasons for relying on levees for protecting the 
country from overflow, but they appear to be unknown, not only to 
the country at large, but to many who reside in the Mississippi Valley 
and are most vitally interested in the problem. 

I therefore consider it proper to appear before you, accept the 
invitation of the illustrious speaker who preceded me, and state 
briefly reasons for rejecting the various methods of flood control 
other than levees which have been suggested. As a full discussion 
of any one of the propositions would prolong my remarks to such an 
extent as to tax your patience, I can only touch upon the subject, 
and I have confined myself to stating not what I considered the most 
logical argument for the engineer, but the reason most evident to 
the general public for rejecting a proposition. 

ABANDONMENT OF LEVEES. 

Many persons in the United States—some even in the Missis¬ 
sippi Valley—argue that as the heights of floods have increased as 
the land has been reclaimed, this is sufficient evidence that there are 
no limits to the heights which the river will reach, and that levees 
should therefore be abandoned, mounds constructed to preserve cattle 
and other farm animals during the floods, and the cultivation of the 
country confined to such periods as there is no overflow. Such 
critics point to the Nile as an example, and argue that as this method 
of handling the Nile has been successful, it should be applied on the 
Mississippi. 

102 



FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 103 

I shall discuss the question of levee heights later, but desire at the 
present time to particularly invite attention to the dangers which 
result from comparing one river with another without familiarity 
with the conditions that exist on both. 

It is unquestionaly true that the flood waters of the Nile have for 
ages been permitted to spread over its valley with beneficial results, 
but it by no means follows therefrom that other rivers should be 
similarly treated. 

The Nile rises near the Equator, and flows from a tropical toward 
a temperate zone. This characteristic differentiates it from most 
of the other large rivers of the world. Its floods arise from tropical 
storms during the early winter months, which reach its mouth early 
in the spring. It therefore deposits its silt on the land and subsides 
before the agriculturist is prepared to plant his crops. In fact, as 
there is little rain in the Nile Valley, it is impossible for the crop to 
grow until the river overflows. 

The conditions on the Mississippi are the reverse. Its sources are 
in the ice-bound North, and it flows toward the Tropics instead of 
away from them. The snows at some of its sources are beginning 
to melt when the floods of the Nile have reached the sea. Bounteous 
rains occur in the lower valley, and the crops are therefore well 
advanced before the flood arrives. The floods of the Nile prepare 
the land for the farmer, while those of the Mississippi destroy the 
crops he has planted. 

An occasional flood from the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers 
may flow down the river and subside in time to allow planting after 
it has passed, but the usual flood from the Ohio River, and any flood 
from the Missouri or upper Mississippi Rivers arrives so late that 
it is impracticable to raise cotton or sugar cane after it subsides. 

As Judge Taylor has observed, if the river was allowed to disperse 
its waters freely over the whole alluvial plain, the overflow would 
be shallow, and low mounds would suffice for refuge during floods, 
where the inhabitants could wait in safety for the waters to subside. 

Men have lived and could live again under such conditions, but not 
comfortably, according to modern ideas. Such abandonment of all 
attempts at control of the river would leave it free to work its own 
will on its banks. It would wander hither and thither around sand 
bars which it had built from material taken from its caving banks 
and which it would be unable to remove. It would behave as it did 
in the ages when it was building the alluvial valley. The same law 
of sedimentary deposit which obtained then would be present and 
controlling. A narrow margin of land adjacent to the overflow 
would be built up, beyond which would stretch interminable swamps 
filled with water. No intelligent man can entertain seriously such 
a proposal as this. 

REFORESTATION. 


Judging from my correspondence, it would appear that there exists 
in the public mind an impression that the prime cause of floods in 
this country has been the destruction of the forests, and that the 
surest way to prevent them is by reforestation. The subject of the 
influence of forests on stream flow is not unknown to the river engi¬ 
neer. It has been extensively discussed both by European and 
American engineers since Gustav Wex, imperial and ministerial coun- 


104 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

selor and engineer of the improvement of the Danube River at Vi¬ 
enna in 1873, submitted a series of papers on the decrease of water 
in springs, creeks, and rivers, which were translated into English 
by the late Gen. Weitzel, of the Corps of Engineers. 

There is a great diversity of opinion on the subject, some main¬ 
taining that the cutting off of forests will ultimately convert Europe 
into a Numidian desert, while others claim that a moderate cutting 
of the forests even increases the rainfall. Whatever may be the 
theoretical principles involved, their practical application to the 
lower Mississippi River is fraught with great difficult} 7 . 

When a country acquires a population of nearly 100,000,000 people, 
the forest primeval which existed when it was first settled has to 
disappear. It is all very well to bemoan the fact that if the black 
walnut which once covered the State of Ohio had not been destroyed 
and was sold as lumber at the present market rates it would equal 
the assessed valuation of the property of the State, but there have 
now been created the cities of Cleveland and Cincinnati, whose 
people can not live on black walnuts alone, but require grain and 
meat. The black walnut of Ohio has gone never to return, and it is 
the same in other sections. The fertile lands will not be taken away 
from the farmer. They are too valuable for raising potatoes and 
hogs. Only the poorer soils can be used for forest culture, and only 
a limited reforestation, then, is possible. It is therefore ridiculous 
to expect any better results in reference to floods from reforestation 
than existed before the forests were destroyed. While our official 
gauge records do not in general extend back much more than 40 
years, yet on several of the western rivers we have records of the 
heights of floods extending over a century. Thus at St. Louis there 
is a flood recorded in 1844, having a height of 41 feet on the gauge. 
The next highest flood, in 1785, was over 40 feet. At Cincinnati 
in 1832 there was one of 64 feet. It is needless to explain to this 
audience that a flood of such heights in either the Ohio or upper 
Mississippi would mean ruin to the plantations below Cairo if there 
were no levees to protect them. 

It is, however, argued by some that with reforestation if the floods 
occasionally were high they would not be as frequent. Again let us 
search the records of the past. It is hopeless by reforestation to 
expect to reproduce the forest growth that existed at the close of the 
Civil War. Yet from 1857 to 1867 was a most remarkable series of 
great floods, occurring as frequently as any that have been recorded 
since that time. 

RESERVOIRS. 

Next to reforestation, reservoirs as a means of controlling floods 
appears to have the most advocates. The reservoir theory is par¬ 
ticularly attractive, as we have before us in the Great Lakes a prac¬ 
tical illustration of flood restraint by means of natural reservoirs. 
Reservoir control of the Mississippi'River was discussed by Hum¬ 
phreys and Abbot in 1858, and on the upper Mississippi the Corps 
of Engineers has constructed the largest system of reservoirs for 
regulating rivers that has been built in any" country, having nearly 
twice the capacity of those proposed by the Pittsburgh flood commis¬ 
sion for controlling floods at Pittsburgh. These reservoirs have been 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 105 

most successful, not only for increasing the low-water discharge of 
the Mississippi River above St. Paul, the purpose for which they 
were constructed, but also for reducing floods in that portion of the 
river. 

There is therefore nothing novel to the river engineer in the prop¬ 
osition to control rivers by reservoirs. We have not only studied 
its advantages, but we know its limitations. Conditions are ex¬ 
tremely favorable for reservoir construction at the headwaters of the 
Mississippi, but while they materially increase the low-water dis¬ 
charge at St. Paul and markedly reduce flood heights, yet 100 miles 
farther down the river it is impossible to detect their influence during 
either high or low water. 

A reservoir must be close to the locality to be benefited or its 
value rapidly diminishes, and this is a serious trouble with any 
project for regulating the lower Mississippi by reservoirs. 

The material which is eroded from our hills is carried down by 
our rivers and deposited during floods on the lowlands of the lower 
reaches, making them the richest agricultural portions of our coun¬ 
try. They become highly cultivated, buildings and fences are con¬ 
structed, towns spring up and are connected by highways and rail¬ 
roads. Railroad wrecking is a rather popular amusement at present, 
so I omit their relocation from the discussion; but the engineer had 
better beware of that horny-handed son of toil, the American farmer. 
He is not going to consent to be driven from the rich alluvial valley 
to the less fertile hills, and is going to protest most vigorously against 
structures which will cover his fields with water from 150 to 200 feet 
deep. As he has votes, it is going to be necessary to listen to him, 
and the dams must be moved back to the mountain streams where 
land is of little value. This renders necessary the construction of the 
reservoirs to control the Ohio River on the upper branches of the 
Allegheny, Monongahela, and other tributaries, over 1,000 miles 
from its mouth. Those on the upper Mississippi will also be about 
1,000 miles from Cairo, and those on the Missouri over 2,000. These 
are too great distances for the proper regulation of any stream. 
Moreover, such a project leaves too large a proportion of the water¬ 
shed unprotected to be effective. In fact, the flood of 1912 was 
caused by rains in that portion of the valley which would be without 
reservoirs. It was not the melting snow at the sources, but rains 
in midstream areas that created the damage. Neither at Cincinnati, 
St. Louis, Chattanooga, nor Nashville w r ere flood heights excessive. 

I have recently been appointed a member of a board to investi¬ 
gate the use of reservoirs to protect the city of Pittsburgh from 
overflow. The Pittsburgh Flood Commission has a carefully pre¬ 
pared project, which proposes to store in IT reservoirs 59,000,000,000 
cubic feet of water, at an estimated cost of about $21,000,000, which 
I consider very reasonable. Fifty-nine thousand million is a pretty 
large-looking figure, but I made a little computation to see what it 
meant when translated into a unit applicable to the Mississippi River, 
and found that during less than 7 hours 59,000,000,000 cubit feet 
of water flowed by the latitude of Red River at the crest of the 
recent flood, and based on the estimate of the flood commission, it 
would therefore require over $73,000,000 to build reservoirs that 
would hold the water that passed down the river in one day. The 
cost of storing one day’s flow is ample for all the levee construction 


106 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


required on the river; while its reliance is placed on reservoirs, pro¬ 
vision must also be made for the other 48 days the river was above 
a bank-full stage. 

cut-offs. 

Another favorite method suggested for reducing flood heights 
is by means of cut-offs. The Mississippi River Commission in nu¬ 
merous reports has called attention to the injury which would result 
from cut-offs, the increased caving which is caused thereby, and the 
damage to navigation during low water. These may be thought by 
some theoretical considerations. I desire to invite attention to the 
fact that cut-offs have been repeatedly tried in Europe as a means of 
reducing floods, but always with disastrous results. The most noted 
example is the River Theiss, in Hungary. 

This river originally had a very gentle slope, about equal to that 
of the Illinois River below La Salle. It was leveed, with the same 
results which always obtain when rivers are confined—the heights of 
its flood increased. It was then proposed to shorten the river by 
cutting off the bends and thus giving it a deeper slope. The project 
was carried out, but the first great flood that occurred after the work 
was completed rushed through the improved section much faster 
than the lower part of the river could carry it off. Flood heights 
were lowered, to be sure, at the upper end, but correspondingly 
increased at the lower, and in 1879 the town of Szegedin was de¬ 
stroyed by the flood. 

At the Canal de Miribel on the Rhone a similar method was tried, 
with similar results. At the upper end of the reach both the high- 
water and the low-water planes were lowered, with great damage to 
the low-water navigation, while at the lower end they were raised, 
producing increased flood heights and also injury to the low-water 
channel. A cut-off affords relief at one locality, but at the expense of 
another. 

OUTLETS. 

Outlets have been suggested as another means of relief, and the 
Mississippi River Commission has frequently discussed the inad¬ 
visability of outlets and waste weirs as a means of lowering flood 
heights. I differ with some of my conferees on this subject, but 
rather in the line of argument than in results. Where the river has 
depths exceeding 100 feet, as in the vicinity of New Orleans, I am 
of the opinion we could afford to permit a moderate diminution of 
river depths if thereby we could obtain a material reduction of levee 
heights. I also believe that the effect of outlets in reducing flood 
heights is not as great as is popularly supposed. The last flood, 
however, clearly demonstrated that wherever there was a large cre¬ 
vasse, which is but another name for an outlet, the river ceased to 
rise. Such outlets were not entirely satisfactory to the planter whose 
land was behind them. And another lesson to be derived from this 
flood is that if you are going to reduce flood heights by this means, 
you must also control your outlet, i. e., it will require a levee system 
of the same height as that of the main river, and the amount that is 
saved in the height of the levee line will not compensate for the extra 
length it is necessary to construct and maintain. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


107 


Another serious objection to an outlet is the difficulty in regulating 
the velocity with which the water will flow through it at varying 
heights of the main stream. If it is so constructed that it will dis¬ 
charge at a greater velocity than the river itself, there is danger of 
its enlargement to such an extent as to divert the greater part of the 
flow down it, and transfer the main stream itself into an outlet; and 
if, on the other hand, it discharges at a lower velocity, it will tend 
to fill with sediment. 


THE EFFECT OF LEVEES ON RIVER BED. 


There is considerable confusion in the public mind in reference to 
the effect of levees on the river bed, some believing that they cause the 
bed to scour out, while others are equally as positive they cause the 
river bed to rise. 

The motion of sediment in a silt-bearing stream is not clearly un¬ 
derstood, even by many engineers who write on river hydraulics. 

In such a stream there are certain sections called pools, which 
are usually found in the bends. These are separated by shallower 
sections, which are called bars. 

When the river is low the velocity with which the water flows 
through the pools is less than that with which it flows over the bars, 
and there is a tendency for the channel over the bars to scour out and 
the material eroded to be deposited in the pool below. As a river 
rises the velocity in the pools increases more rapidly than on the 
bars, and a period soon occurs when there is a greater scour in the 
pools than on the bars, so that the bars begin to rise and the pools to 
deepen. When the river falls the velocities in the pools decrease 
more rapidly than on the bars, and there is a reversal of the process— 
the bars deepening and the pools filling up. This action is modified 
by a movement of sand waves down the river and by a centrifugal 
force which results from the piling up of water in the bends, but it 
occurs in all alluvial streams which flow with sufficient velocity to 
scour their beds, whether they are leveed or not. Levees may, to a 
certain extent, intensify this action, but they will not materially 


change it. 

With such constant mutations the only way to determine whether 
the river bed is rising or being scoured out is by comparing corre¬ 
sponding low waters with each other, or corresponding high waters. 

Several hundred years ago a French traveler visited Italy, and 
on his return reported that levees had raised the bed of the Po 
River. His statement was carefully investigated and found to be 
untrue, but, like Wex’s assertion that the cutting of forests has in¬ 
jured river beds, it has traveled over the whole world where rivers 
have been improved, and vexed the engineer in charge of their im- 

^The French engineers have made careful investigations of the 
leveed rivers of France and found no evidence of such action. The 
Germans have studied the Rhine and the Austrians the rivers of 
Austria-Hungary and failed to detect it. The Mississippi River Com¬ 
mission has made similar observations of the Mississippi River and 
found more evidences of a scour than of a fill. In no case has it 
been observed that the effect of levees to raise the river bed was more 
than a few tenths of a foot in a hundred years, and may be termed a 


108 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


geological effect resulting from the lengthening of the river as it 
deposits its silt at its mouth. The assertion is now admitted to be 
false on the main rivers of all civilized countries which are capable 
of being studied, but it is still claimed that it is true in China and 
Japan. I recently visited Japan and had an opportunity to further 
investigate the subject. On the larger rivers, like the Osaka, there 
were no evidences of any such action, but in mountain streams which 
flow down steep hillsides and suddenly change their slope when they 
pass through plains, as is the case with a number of streams which 
empty into Lake Biwa, the upper portions of the streams have been 
scoured out, forming deep gullies, and the material thus eroded de¬ 
posited at the foot of the hills. The same conditions exist on the 
mountain streams which empty into the Mississippi that are not 
leveed, but the eroded material has an opportunity to spread over a 
greater area at the foot of the hills and is therefore not as perceptible. 

My own view of the effect of levees on stream flow is that they 
tend to remove irregularities and make the slope more uniform. If 
a cut-off should occur, disturbing the river’s regimen, they would 
tend to cause the river to return more quickly to its normal slope, 
raising those bars which had been unduly lowered and scouring out 
those which were abnormally high. They should also, to a certain 
extent, enlarge the river section, but at a rate so low that it would 
be a question of practical importance to those who will inhabit the 
valley in the twenty-fifth century rather than those who are tilling 
it to-day. 

LEVEE HEIGHTS. 

While there is no evidence that the bed of the Mississippi River 
has risen from levee construction, it is apparent that flood heights 
have greatly increased in the last 20 years. 

When the Mississippi River Commission was formed there existed 
two schools of engineers—one that believed if the river were leveed 
it would scour out so that a large increase in flood heights would not 
occur; the other that there would be little enlargement of the river 
section, and that flood heights should be computed without regard 
thereto. 

There was considerable discussion of those propositions, both by 
the commission and the general public, and the general public was 
very strongly opposed to the theory that high levees were necessary. 

I take the liberty of recalling that about 20 years ago I submitted 
a paper to prove that if the St. Francis Basin were leveed a flood 
like that of 1882 would attain a height at Helena of at least 54 feet. 
I was forthwith charged with being an enemy of the levee system. 
A state of the public mind existed similar to that which arose in 
Louisiana at the commencement of the recent flood, when I intimated 
that there w T as danger to the levees of that State. I do not recall that 
any demands were made for my removal, but it was suggested to the 
commission that investigations by subordinate officers be discouraged. 

Under these conditions it was necessary for the commission to 
establish a grade line for levee construction, and they announced a 
provisional grade, which was neither as low as many persons con¬ 
sidered ample, nor as high as others thought necessary. This grade 
was generally accepted as a line to build to, the ultimate grade to 
which levees were to be constructed to be afterwards determined by 
observation. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 109 

This was a most happy solution of the problem, as was forcibly 
demonstrated during the last flood, during which less than 1 per cent 
of the length of the levee line was destroyed. The engineer must 
always bear in mind that he must make the best use that is possible 
of the funds with which he is intrusted. If the ultimate grade line 
which this flood shows is necessary had been adopted, it is true that 
many miles of levee would have been held with comparatively little 
effort, as was the case in the upper Yazoo district, but to attain such 
a result the funds which would have been expended in constructing 
them would have been taken from the remainder of the levee line, 
which would have been necessarily weakened thereby, and crevasses 
would therefore have been much more frequent. 

In fact, if it could be predicted that the next great flood would be 
similar to the last, even a somewhat lower provisional grade line 
would be desirable in certain portions of the river, as 586 miles of 
levees have not been constructed to this grade, and some 53,000,000 
cubic yards must be placed in them to create the cross section which 
has been adopted by the commission. But no two floods are similar. 
The grade line established by this flood will be subject to material 
changes, arising from variations in the discharge of the White, 
Arkansas, and Red Rivers, or even from local rains. 

There is appended a table which gives the heights attained by the 
river at various localities during the last flood, the previous highest 
waters, the provisional levee grade, and the estimated high water 
during the flood of 1912 if no crevasses had occurred. It will sur¬ 
prise many to learn that at none of the stations in the table the flood 
of 1912 reached a height equal to that of the provisional grade line, 
nor did a crevasse occur in any levee that was built to the grade and 
given the cross section established by the commission, except possibly 
at Hymela. 

If the recommendations of the commission, made some 15 years 
ago, had been carried out, this disaster to a large extent would have 
been averted. I do not mean to imply by this statement that the pro¬ 
visional grade adopted by the commission is the ultimate grade to 
which levees should be constructed; in fact, they must ultimately be 
built at least from 2 to 3 feet higher; but that if the provisional grade 
and cross section had existed throughout the valley, wherever the 
flood attained a height greater than the provisional grade, there 
would have been a good fighting chance to hold the levees by topping, 
while with defective foundations and weak section the battle was lost 
before the river could attain that height. 

As a result of this flood the commission does not recommend any 
immediate change in its provisional grade; on the contrary, it is 
of the opinion that the first work to be done is to strengthen the 
foundations wherever any weakness has been observed, then to bring 
the section to standard dimensions. When the levee line is uniformly 
perfected to the provisional grade, its further enlargement will be 
advisable. Excessive strength in one locality with the necessary 
undue weakness at others should be avoided. 

CAVING BANKS. 

While about 2,500,000 cubic yards of the levee line were destroyed 
by crevasses during the last flood, over 4,300,000 cubic yards had to 

30573°—II. Rep. 300, 63-2, pt 2-8 


110 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

be abandoned during the past year on account of caving banks. The 
loss from crevasses is considered a national calamity, while that 
from caving banks is scarcely noticed. But I desire to particularly 
invite attention to the drain upon the community this caving of 
levees into the river has become. It requires an expenditure of nearly 
$1,000,000 annually to replace them. The Mississippi River Com¬ 
mission appreciates the relief that Congress has afforded them by 
its proviso that $4,000,000 of the $6,000,000 appropriated by the last 
rivers and harbors bill must be expended on levees. It precludes the 
use of any funds for the protection of city parks or even city fronts. 
But there is a danger from too close a limitation of the powers of the 
commission. It frequently is cheaper to construct a bank revetment 
than to rebuild a levee which is caving into the river. I apprehend 
that under the present act several hundred thousand dollars will be 
wasted. Because of its limitations levees must be constructed where 
bank revetments are more desirable. 

FOUNDATIONS. 

The advice which the commission has received on the use of con¬ 
crete, steel piles, triple-lap sheet piling, and other patent inventions 
for levee construction would fill a large volume. I will not detain 
you with a discussion of these devices further than to state that we 
are convinced from the results of the late flood that greater care 
must be exercised in securing the levee foundations, but whether 
this result will be attained by an enlarged muck ditch, a wall of con¬ 
crete or sheet piling, or other means is dependent so much on local 
conditions that no general plan can at present be formulated. 

conclusion. 

The flood of 1912 affords no argument for the abandonment of 
levee construction. It has simply attained the height which Gen. 
Comstock and Maj. Starling predicted the flood of 1882 would have 
attained if the river had then been confined. It has cleared the at¬ 
mosphere of certain false theories, and we can now resume opera¬ 
tions with a definite knowledge of the problem before us. We are 
passing through the same experience European nations have had. 
Levees have been tested for ages and have proved uniformly suc¬ 
cessful when built of adequate dimensions. During the progress of 
construction there were disasters on foreign rivers as well as in the 
United States. No other method of relief from floods has been suc¬ 
cessfully applied to large streams. 

Originality is a very desirable quality in an engineer, but there is 
danger of confusing originality and ignorance. When a proposition 
Avith which he is unfamiliar is presented to him it is his duty to follow 
the instructions placed at some raihvay crossings, to stop, look, and 
listen. He should investigate what has been done in the past, and 
seek to discover if there is no precedent for his action. 

It Avas said several thousand years ago that there is nothing new 
under the sun. The saying is true to-day. To adopt a project, even 
though popular, that has been tried, found Avanting, and rejected by 
our forefathers is not progress, but retrogression. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. Ill 

Table of gauge readings of flood heights and provisional grades , Mississippi 

River , Cairo to Fort Jackson. 



High water, 1912. 1 

Previous high¬ 
est water and 
year. 

High 

water, 

1912, 

com¬ 

pared 

with 

pre¬ 

vious 

high¬ 

est. 

Esti¬ 
mated 
high 
water 
for con¬ 
fined 
flood, 
1912.2 

Provi¬ 

sional 

levee 

grade. 

High 

water, 

1912, 

below 

provi¬ 

sional 

levOe 

grade. 

Name of gauge station. 

below 

Cairo. 

Date. 

Gauge 

read¬ 

ing. 

Feet. 

Year. 

Cairo, Ill. 

Columbus, Ky. 

New Madrid, Mo. 

Cottonwood Point, Mo.. 

Fulton, Tenn. 

Memphis, Tenn. 

Mhoon Landing, Miss.... 

Helena, Ark..... 

Sunflower Landing, Miss. 
Mouth of White River, 

Arkansas. 

Arkansas City, Ark. 

Greenville, Miss. 

Lake Providence, La.... 

Vicksburg, Miss. 

St. Joseph, La. 

Natchez, Miss. 

Red River Landing, La.. 

Bayou Sara, La. 

Baton Rouge, La. 

Plaquemine : La. 

Donaldsonville, La. 

College Point, La. 

Carrollton, La. 

Fort Jackson, La. 

0.0 

21.6 

70.3 

122.5 

175.4 
230.0 
276.3 

306.5 

352.7 

393.2 

438.3 

478.3 

542.3 

599.3 

648.3 

700.3 

765.3 

799.8 

833.3 
854.1 

885.4 

904.5 
957.0 

1,039.0 

Apr. 6,7... 

Apr. 5. 

.. .do. 

Apr. 11-13. 

Apr. 9. 

Apr. 6. 

...do. 

Apr. 22.... 
Apr. 15_ 

Apr. 16.... 
Apr. 12.... 

...do. 

...do. 

...do. 

Apr. 13.... 
Apr. 13,17. 
May 11,12. 
May 11.... 
May 11,13. 
May 11.... 
May 10.... 
May 11.... 

...do. 

May 3,4,7, 
11. 

Feet. 

53.95 

49.00 

44.11 
42.04 
43.31 

45.20 
44.90 
54.30 
50. 85 

56. 35 
55.35 
50. 75 

48.11 
51.65 
48.60 
51.40 

53.20 

47.20 
43.80 
39.38 
35.10 
30.23 
21.05 

8. 28 

52.17 
45.58 
40.27 
39.96 
40.15 
40.30 

42.20 
51.75 
48.00 

53.70 
52.90 
49.10 

46.48 

52.48 
48.07 
50.35 

50.20 

43.70 
40. 65 
36. 25 
32. 75 
27.95 
19. 42 

8. 27 

1883 

1883 

1897 

1903 

1903 

1907 

1907 

1897 

1903 

1903 

1903 

1903 

1903 

1897 

1903 

1903 

1897 

1897 

1897 

1897 

1897 

1897 

1903 

1907 

Feet. 

+ 1.78 
+ 3.42 
+3.84 
+2.08 
+3.16 
+4.90 
+2.70 
+2. 55 
+2.85 

+2.65 
+2. 45 
+ 1.65 
+ 1.63 
- .83 
+ .53 
+1.05 
+3.00 
+3.50 
+3.15 
+3.13 
+2.35 
+ 2. 28 
+ 1.63 
+ .01 

Feet. 

55.0 

49.7 

44.6 
43.0 
44.0 

48.5 
47.0 

55.5 
53.0 

58.9 

57.5 

52.8 

50.7 
55.0 
51.0 

54.5 

54.5 

48.5 

45.1 

40.7 
36.0 
31.4 

22.2 
9.0 

Feet. 

55.20 

51.30 

45.60 

44.30 

44.60 

45. 60 

46. 80 

56.10 

52.20 

57. 70 
56.90 

53.10 
50.48 

55.80 

52.80 
, 56.00 

54.50 

47.70 

45.20 
40. 70 
36.95 

31.80 
23.00 
11.00 

Feet. 

1.25 
2.30 
1.49 

2.26 

1.29 
.40 

1.90 

1.80 

1.35 

1.35 
1.55 

2.35 
2.37 
4.15 
4.20 
4.60 

1.30 
.50 

1.40 
1.32 
1.85 
1.57 
1.95 
2.72 


1 The high water of 1912 is the highest known for all stations on the Mississippi River from Cairo down, 
except at Vicksburg, Miss. 

2 The estimated high water for the 1912 flood confined is deduced from the data now available, and may 
be modified by further experience. 

THE PROBLEM OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


[Editorial Scientific American, Feb. 15, 1913.] 

The great flood of the Mississippi River of last year—the largest 
in recorded history—when the levees were overtopped or carried 
away bodily, and vast areas of the valley were inundated, has created 
a doubt in the minds of the public as to whether the method of con¬ 
trol by revetment and construction of levees was not a failure. This 
doubt has been freely expressed in the many letters which have been 
published during the past year in the columns of the Scientific 
American. We have made no comment upon these letters, many of 
which suggested alternative and supposedly better plans for the con¬ 
trol of the river, and our silence lias been due to the fact that we were 
making a study of the problem from every possible source of informa¬ 
tion, with a view to determining for ourselves whether the present 
plans for the control of the river, or some other, were the best to 
apply in grappling with and controlling this stupendous problem. 

We have come to the conclusion that the present plan of the 
Army Engineers of protecting the banks of the river by revetment 
and raising the banks by artificial levees to a sufficient height to pre¬ 
vent overflow is not only the best wav to control the river, but the 
only way. 
















































112 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


If it be asked whether the disastrous inundation of last year does 
not spell failure, we answer emphatically, u No.” The inundation 
occurred, not because the plan was faulty, but because it was incom¬ 
plete. It was also due to the fact that the existing levees were built 
only to a sufficient elevation to control the highest flood on record, 
which the flood of last year greatly exceeded—the maximum flow 
reaching the enormous total of 2,300,000 feet per second, or twelve 
times the amount of water that passes over Niagara Falls. 

The trouble with the Mississippi work is not that the plans are 
wrong, but that they have been carried out piecemeal, and in a some¬ 
what happy-go-lucky manner. The Nation should apply to this 

E ’eat work the lesson which it has learned at Panama. A new grade 
ae for the summit of the levees should be established, said line being 
well above the height reached by the flood of last year; a liberal 
estimate should be made of the total cost of building these levees, 
and of protecting the adjacent banks of the river throughout the 
whole length of the levees with revetments; an estimate should be 
made of the largest annual appropriation of money that could be 
efficiently expended by the largest force that could be concentrated 
upon the work; and finally the execution of the work should be 
placed entirely in the hands of the Army Engineers with a Col. 
Goethals in supreme and unhampered control. 

Such an estimate of the total cost of a completely leveed and 
revetted Mississippi River has been made by the Army engineers 
under the Mississippi River Commission. The total expenditure 
would be about $70,000,000 for the levee work and about $90,000,000 
for the revetment. 

Is complete control of the Mississippi River and the absolute pre¬ 
vention of disastrous floods worth the expenditure of $160,000,000? 
The Scientific American is decidedly of the opinion that the money 
would be well spent. In the first place, the completion of this work 
would afford protection to 29,000 square miles of land. The in¬ 
creased value of the land, due to protection, is shown by a statement 
of Col. Townsend, president of the Mississippi River Commission, 
who has recently testified before the Committee on Rivers and Har¬ 
bors in the House of Representatives that 20 years ago, when he was 
first stationed in the St. Francis Basin, land in that vicinity could be 
bought for a dollar or two an acre, whereas to-day it is worth any¬ 
where from $20 to $50 and even $100 an acre. Furthermore, there 
is the humanitarian consideration that this work would prevent the 
great loss of life and destruction of property which occurs when the 
river breaks loose. And, finally, there is the consideration that the 
completion of this task will constitute a great national work of engi¬ 
neering comparable in its magnitude and beneficent results with 
the execution of the Panama Canal. 

We will now proceed to discuss the criticisms of the present plan 
and the suggestions of alternative schemes of control which have 
been made in the many letters referred to above. It has been stated 
that the whole principle of levee building is wrong; and this for the 
reason that the matter brought down in suspension is deposited along 
the bed of the river, which is continually being raised, that this ne¬ 
cessitates a raising of the levees, which must go on indefinitely. As 
a matter of fact, what takes place is this: When the floods come 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 113 

down, the deep pools are scoured out and the material is deposited 
on the shoals farther down the river, causing a temporary raising of 
the bottom at these points. As the river falls, the action is reversed, 
the bars are scoured out, and the sand is deposited in the next pool. 
Careful surveys for several decades show that not only has there 
been no raising of the river bed, but the cross section of the river 
has slightly increased. 

As to the proposal to control the Mississippi by building vast 
reservoirs near the headwaters of the river and its tributaries, it may 
be said at once that the magnitude and cost of such reservoirs and the 
enormous areas of land that would have to be condemned, render, 
such a scheme impracticable. Its advocates have failed to realize 
the stupendous magnitude of a problem which involves the control of 
flood waters that sweep down the Mississippi River at the rate of 
2,300,000,000 cubic feet per second. Testifying on the point, Col. 
Townsend said before the House committee: “ If you were to destroy 
the whole State of Minnesota—that is, stop every bit of water flowing 
over it—it would not have made a difference of three-tenths of a foot 
in the height of the last flood at Cairo.” Again, if, as has been sug¬ 
gested, the St. Francis Basin were converted into a storage reservoir 
and the floods were thereby reduced 3 or 4 feet in height, it would 
be necessary to sacrifice no less than 7,000 square miles of country, 
or the area of a good-sized State. 

Another favorite scheme contemplates the diversion of the Mis¬ 
sissippi or of a large portion of its flood waters, by means of sub¬ 
channels, or “ canals,” excavated on one side or the other of the river. 
This suggestion also fails to appreciate the magnitude of the problem. 
If such channels were to be cut, they would have to be leveed in ex¬ 
actly the same way as the river which they were intended to relieve. 
To produce any serious diminution in the height of a river that was 
passing down 2,300,000,000 cubic feet of water per second, it would 
be necessary to divert from 400,000 to 600,000 feet per second; which 
means that an artificial river would have to be excavated and leveed 
whose flow would be from two to three times as great as the whole 
flow of the Niagara River. 

The proposition to straighten out the river by cutting through the 
bends is impracticable for the reason that while the more rapid flow 
would relieve the flood in the districts thus affected this relief would 
be obtained at the expense of the districts lower down the river. The 
swifter current of the flood water, due to the shorter course, would 
necessitate a corresponding increase in the height of the levees in the 
lower sections of the valley. 

As to the important question of financing the work, the simplest 
and most effective plan, of course, would be to do with regard to the 
Mississippi as we have done at Panama—make it a national problem 
and provide the whole cost from the National Treasury. Hitherto 
the Government has put up so much money, so much has been con¬ 
tributed by the local levee boards, and, in one case at least, the State 
has made appropriations. It is not surprising to learn that Col. 
Townsend designates such conditions as amounting to practically 
“an absence of system.” Says he: “We have just simply been 
waiting, each one doing the best he could—the levee boards have 
been doing their work, and the district engineers have been doing 


114 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


whatever they could with their funds, and it has been a happy-go- 
lucky method of business.” 

We believe that the most satisfactory way of financing the project 
would be for Congress to treat the improvement of America’s great¬ 
est river as a national undertaking, make the necessary appropria¬ 
tions, abolish the system of individual boards, and place the' execution 
of the work under the one-man control of the Army. Next to this 
the best plan would be one of joint Federal and State appropriations, 
in proportions to be determined by the local advantages secured, with 
the physical design and execution of the work intrusted to the Corps 
of Engineers of the Army, working under the absolute control of an 
Army officer of proved executive ability. 

In another year the Panama Canal will be completed. Why not 
move Col. Goethals, with his admirable staff and perfectly working 
system, from the Isthmus of Panama to the Mississippi Valley? 


Appendix B. 

ELEMENTS OF FLOOD CONTROL. 


Address delivered by Col. C. McD. Townsend, Corps of Engineers, United States 
Army, and President Mississippi River Commission, before Drainage Con¬ 
gress at St. Louis, Mo. 

Mr. President and gentlemen, the subject of land drainage is inti¬ 
mately associated with that of river improvement. The cultivation 
of the soil largely increases the amount of sediment entering our 
streams; the direction of the furrow markedly affects the amount 
of rain water that flows from its surface, and every ditch or subsur¬ 
face drain promotes a more rapid flow into our rivers during floods 
and possibly affects their discharge during low water. On the other 
hand, no satisfactory system of land drainage can be accomplished 
in a country subject to periodic overflow by river floods. In the 
Mississippi Valley protection from floods is absolutely required be¬ 
fore any regular system of drainage can be inaugurated. The over¬ 
flow is so great and the amount of sediment carried by the river so 
large that the drains would be annually destroyed or filled. The 
floods not only insure the destruction of any crops that might be 
planted, but also usually occur at such times as to prevent the har¬ 
vesting of a second crop the same year. A discussion of the means 
of preventing floods in the Mississippi Valley is therefore particu¬ 
larly appropriate at this meeting. In a {>aper read before a levee 
convention in Memphis last September I briefly discussed the various 
means of flood control which had been suggested to the Mississippi 
River Commission. Now I propose to confine my remarks to the 
three methods in which the public appears most interested, i. e., re¬ 
forestation, reservoirs, and levees. 

Sources of Floods. 

Before entering upon such a discussion it is desirable to have a 
clear conception of the sources from which floods arise. 

As you will recall, the greater Mississippi Valley is bounded on 
the east by the Appalachian chain and on the west by the Rocky 
Mountains. These mountain ranges exert a great influence on its 
floods. The winds blowing from an easterly direction deposit most 
of the moisture they absorb from the Atlantic Ocean on the eastern 
slope of the Alleghenies, and therefore cause little rain in the Mis¬ 
sissippi Valley; the Rocky Mountains intercept the moisture from 
the Pacific Ocean. While showers occur from winds blowing over 
the Great Lakes, the original source of the floods of the Mississippi 
is to be sought in the Gulf of Mexico. 


115 



116 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


Where Our Floods Come From. 

During the winter and spring the land of the Mississippi Val¬ 
ley, no matter what its soil or the nature of its covering, is cooler 
than the waters of the Gulf, and a southerly wind, becoming sat¬ 
urated with moisture as it passes over the water, will precipitate 
that moisture on the land in copious rains, or in snow when the tem¬ 
perature is sufficiently low. A wind from the southwest sweeps up 
the Ohio Valley, one from the south carries moisture to the upper 
Mississippi, one from the southeast to the valleys of the Arkansas 
and the Missouri, but in all cases there is a tendency for the greatest 
rainfall to occur near the coast, and gradually to decrease as the 
wind currents travel inland. Thus the average annual rainfall at 
New Orleans is 60 inches, at Memphis 52 inches, at Cincinnati 42 
inches, at Pittsburgh 36 inches, and at St. Louis 40 inches. At the 
headwaters of the upper Mississippi it is but 25 inches, and at the 
headwaters of the Missouri but 13 inches. Though floods do not 
arise from mean conditions but from exceptional rainfall, when 6 
to 10 inches fall in a week, these figures are good indices of flood 
volumes, as we -find from observation by the Geological Survey at 
Williston, N. Dak., that the flood discharge of the upper reaches of 
the Missouri is about 1 second-foot per square mile of drainage 
area; measurements at St. Paul give an extreme flood discharge for 
the upper Mississippi of slightly over 2 second-feet per square mile; 
in the Ohio it is about 6 second-feet; and in the Ouachita, St. Fran¬ 
cis, and Yazoo Rivers from 8 to 10. 

From the above it will be seen that the rainfall is very unequally 
distributed over the Mississippi Valley, being least at the upper 
sources of the tributaries and rapidly increasing as you approach 
the main stream, though an exception is to be noted in the southern 
tributaries of the Ohio, whose sources are nearer the Gulf than are 
their outlets. 

The maximum discharge of the upper Mississippi River is esti¬ 
mated at 450,000 second-feet; the Missouri, 900,000; the Ohio, 1,400,- 
000; the Arkansas, 450,000; and the Red, 220,000. There is also a 
large discharge from the Yazoo, St. Francis, White, Tensas, and 
Ouachita Rivers. The maximum discharge of the Mississippi dur¬ 
ing the flood of 1912 was about 2,000,000 second-feet at Cairo and 
2,300,000 at the mouth of Red River. It overflows its natural banks 
when the flow exceeds 1,000,000 second-feet. 

While the influence of forests on stream flow has received little 
attention in this country until recently, the scientists of Europe have 
discussed the subject pro and con during the past 40 years. It is 
generally accepted by both sides that the leaves falling from forest 
trees as they decay form a humus which has a large capacity to 
absorb water, and that when the forests are felled this humus is 
seriously injured by forest fires. It is also admitted that snow is 
more rapidly melted when it is exposed to the direct rays of the sun 
in an open field than when sheltered from such action in a forest. 
In fact, it has been found by the United States Forestry Service 
from experiments recently made in the White Mountains that the 
flow from cleared fields under such conditions is about twice that 
from forests. The forest advocates claim that this is sufficient proof 
that forests absorb water during flood periods which percolates 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 117 

through the ground and flows from springs later in the season, thus 
reducing flood heights and increasing the low-water flow of rivers. 
Its opponents do not admit that the problem is thus easily solved. 
They claim that floods do not arise from the melting of snows by 
the direct action of the sun; that this process is so slow that the 
water which flows off would not raise a river to midstage; that 
floods occur when on a layer of snow there falls a copious supply of 
rain, and both the rain and melted snow enter the stream simultane¬ 
ously ; and that under such conditions the forest, instead of being 
beneficial, is injurious. On cleared land the wind tends to blow the 
snow from the ridges and piles it in immense masses in the ravines, 
while in the forests the snow is uniformly distributed. A few days 
of sunshine dries out the ridges in the open field and melts sufficient 
snow in the forest to saturate with water the underlying humus. 

If a heavy rainfall then occurs the forest humus, being saturated, 
can absorb no more water, and the combined rain and snow of the 
forest flows into the streams, while in the cleared land, the ridges 
having dried out, absorb a large portion of the rainfall, and the 
snowdrifts expose a much smaller surface to the action of rain. 
Moreover, during periods of great drought the forest humus and 
long deep tree roots also absorb more water than grass and farm 
crops, and retard the run-off at a time when it is most needed for 
low-water navigation. They therefore maintain that a forest is a 
fair-weather friend of some use in regulating the midstreams of a 
river, but an utter failure when most needed; that is, during extreme 
floods or extreme low water. While I consider this discussion 
valuable, my objections to reforestation are not based solely on a 
scholastic argument. 

Time to Reforest. 

It requires from 20 to 50 years to produce a good forest growth, 
and over a century for the leaves of that forest to decay in sufficient 
quantities to produce the humus which will be satisfactory as an 
absorbent of rainfall. We can not afford to delay the drainage of 
the Mississippi Valley even to produce the forest growth without 
taking into consideration the time required for the humus to form. 
We are more vitally interested in the height that the river will 
attain in the next few weeks than in what will occur in the year 2013. 

It is also pertinent to this discussion to determine what would 
be the extent of the forest reservation which would be required to 
reduce the flood heights on the Mississippi River a given amount. 
To solve this problem it is necessary to make certain assumptions, 
and for purposes of argument we will take it for granted that re¬ 
forestation will reduce the flood discharge of a stream one-half. 
The Mississippi flood of 1912 attained the greatest height of any 
then recorded at all gauge stations except at Vicksburg. That of 
January and February, 1913, while 5 feet lower at Cairo, was the 
next highest flood at Memphis and for a considerable distance along 
the river. We will endeavor by reforestation to reduce the flood of 
1912 to the heights attained in the winter of 1913. For this pur¬ 
pose it will be necessary to reduce the maximum discharge of the 
river 500,000 second-feet. It will also be necessary to distribute 
this reduction among the tributaries, reducing the maximum dis- 


118 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

charge of the Missouri River from 900,000 to 700,000 second-feet, 
that of the upper Mississippi from 450,000 to 350,000, and that of 
the Ohio River from 1,400,000 to 1,200,000. 

As stated in the introductory remarks, the flood discharge of the 
Missouri River at its headwaters is about 1 cubic foot per second 
per square mile of drainage area, and if the reduction in discharge 
of one-half is to be secured by reforestation 2 square miles of forests 
would be necessary for every second-foot of reduction of flood dis¬ 
charge, or 400,000 square miles of forests to reduce the discharge of 
the Missouri River 200,000 second-feet. At the headwaters of the 
upper Mississippi the ratio of flood discharge to drainage area is 
about 2 second-feet per square mile. A reduction of this discharge 
by one-half would require a forest reservation of 100,000 square 
miles to reduce the floods of the upper Mississippi 100,000 second- 
feet. On the Ohio River the ratio is 6 to 1, and it would therefore 
require forests at the headwaters of the Ohio having an area of 
66,000 square miles to reduce its flow 200,000 second-feet. In other 
words, to reduce the height of a flood at Memphis by reforestation 
at the headwaters of the river from that of 1912 to the next highest 
on record would require a forest reservation of about 566,000 square 
miles, an area exceeding that of the portions of Montana and Wyo¬ 
ming drained by the Missouri River and the States of North and 
South Dakota, the portion of Minnesota drained by the upper Mis¬ 
sissippi River, and the States of Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, and In¬ 
diana. But even such a forest reservation would afford only partial 
protection, and large expenditures for levees would still be required. 
Under the above assumptions, to prevent any overflow by reforesta¬ 
tion would necessitate a practical abandonment of the valley for 
agricultural purposes and the development of an extensive irrigation 
system to produce tree growth in arid regions of the West. 

It is therefore apparent that even under the most extravagant 
claims of forestry advocates reforestation as a means of reducing 
flood heights on the Mississippi River requires the conversion of too 
much farming land into a wilderness to be practicable. The waste 
land that can profitably be converted into forest reservations is too 
limited in area to produce an appreciable effect on the floods. 

Reservoirs. 

To have retained the Mississippi flood of 1912 within its banks 
would have required a reservoir in the vicinity of Cairo, Ill., having 
an area of 7,000 square miles, slightly less than that of the State of 
New Jersey, and a depth of about 15 feet, assuming that it would be 
empty when the river attained a bank-full stage. If the site of such 
a reservoir was a plane surface, the quantity of material to be ex¬ 
cavated in its construction would be over 100*000,000,000 cubic yards, 
and its estimated cost from fifty to one hundred million dollars. 
Such a volume of earth would build a levee line 7,000 miles long and 
over 150 feet high. 

Cairo is the logical location for a reservoir to regulate the dis¬ 
charge of the lower Mississippi. It will not only control the floods 
from the Ohio, but also the discharge from the Missouri and upper 
Mississippi. But if the reservoirs be transferred from the mouths 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI FIVER. 119 

of the tributaries to the headwaters their capacity must be largely 
increased. No two floods have the same origin, unless they are 
referred back to the Gulf of Mexico. The wind bloweth where it 
listeth. If the prevailing winds in the early spring are from the 
southwest, the southern tributaries of the Ohio furnish the crest of 
the year’s flood; if more nearly from the south, reservoirs will be 
required on the streams of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois; a slight 
varying of the wind will produce a flood in the upper Mississippi, 
while if it blows from the southeast the principal sources of trouble 
will be the Red, Arkansas, and Missouri Rivers. To control the flow 
of every stream in the Mississippi Valley by reservoirs is a pretty 
large job even for the United States Government, but that is what 
the control of the Mississippi during floods by reservoirs signifies. 

The advocates of the control of the floods of the Mississippi by 
reservoirs do not, however, have in mind any such radical control 
as is above indicated. They limit the control to the headwaters of 
the various tributaries, and while every stream that flows in the 
valley may be considered a headwater of some tributary I judge 
from the discussions of the reservoirs and their proposed employ¬ 
ment for power purposes, which requires a considerable height of 
dam, that by headwaters is meant the sources of the rivers in moun¬ 
tainous countries as distinguished from the more level plains, and, 
more specifically, the sources of the Missouri above the mouth of the 
Yellowstone, those of the upper Mississippi in the State of Minne¬ 
sota, and those of the Ohio in the Appalachian range. 

The flood which has been devastating the country affords data for 
determining the effect of such a system of reservoirs, and its lessons 
are the more valuable because no effort is necessary to refreshen the 
memory. When, on April 2, the gauge at Cairo attained a height 
of 54 feet, there was flowing down the Mississippi River at least 
2,000,000 cubic feet of water per second. It requires about 11 days for a 
flood wave to be transmitted the 96G miles between Pittsburgh, Pa., 
and Cairo. On March 22 the Pittsburgh gauge read 5.3 feet, which 
is produced by a flow in the Ohio River at that locality of about 15,000 
second-feet. In 10 days a flood travels the 858 miles between St. 
Paul, Minn., and Cairo. On March 2 the reading of the St. Paul 
gauge was 0.5 foot, corresponding to a discharge of the Mississippi 
of about 2,500 second-feet. In 8 days the effect of a flood at St. 
Joseph, Mo., is felt at Cairo. On March 25 the gauge at St. Joseph 
read minus 0.1 foot, representing a discharge of the Missouri River 
of about 17,000 second-feet. If a system of reservoirs had been con¬ 
structed which would have prevented all flow from the Allegheny, 
the Monongaliela, the Mississippi above St. Paul, and the Missouri 
above St, Joseph, it would have reduced the 2,000,000 second-feet dis¬ 
charged by the Mississippi River at Cairo on April 2 less than 35,000 
second - feet. 

The water which passed Cairo on the 2d of April came principally 
from the White and Wabash and the lower tributaries of the Ohio, 
and after the water of these rivers started to subside the flood from 
Cincinnati, though increasing from 57 to 69 feet on the gauge, could 
increase flood heights at Cairo less than 1 foot. The flood of 30 feet 
at Pittsburgh on March 28 produced its effect on the Cairo gauge on 
April 8. It has prolonged the flood without increasing its height. 


120 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


The proposed system of reservoirs would have cost hundreds of 
millions of dollars and its effect on this year’s flood height, of the 
lower Mississippi could not possibly have exceeded 6 inches. 

Neither the rain nor snow which falls upon the mountainous por¬ 
tions of the Mississippi watershed has much effect upon the floods of 
the lower river. The principal source of the floods is the great 
alluvial plain between the mountains. As I have pointed out, except¬ 
ing the southern tributaries of the Ohio, the rainfall is relatively 
slight at the upper sources of the tributaries and their maximum flood 
discharge does not usually coincide with that of the midvalley. 

Great floods do not arise from average conditions, but from ex¬ 
ceptional variations such as are caused by a series of heavy rains 
rapidly succeeding one another. Each rainstorm starts down a 
stream a flood, the volume of which can be absorbed by a reservoir 
with comparatively little trouble, but if a second storm sweeps over 
the valley the reservoir, to be effective, must be emptied or its ca¬ 
pacity doubled. To hold all the excess rainfall till low water would 
require reservoirs of enormous capacity. Economic considerations 
usually require that the reservoirs should be emptied as soon as the 
crest passes, in order to utilize the same space for a second rainfall; 
so that while reducing the crest of a flood at a given locality they 
necessarily prolong the period during which the river remains at a 
high stage. 

The water Avhich is abstracted from the Gulf of Mexico is usually 
precipitated in the Mississippi Valley within a period of two days. 
The return flow extends over a period of two or three months. The 
sum of the maximum discharges of the various tributaries of the 
Mississippi River is nearly 4,000,000 second-feet, while the greatest 
measured discharge of the river itself is about 2,300,000. This 
apparent discrepancy arises from the fact that the floods of the 
tributaries do not reach the Gulf at the same time. The crest of the 
Ohio River flood usually passes down the river in March or April; 
that of the Missouri in May or June. Moreover, the same law ap¬ 
plies to the tributaries of a tributary. The waters of the southern 
branches of the Ohio tend to discharge into that river before those 
in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. 

By the construction of reservoirs this beneficent law of nature 
is deranged. Instead of the crest of the flood of one stream passing 
down the river before that of another reaches it two prolonged high 
stages will obtain, which will tend to synchronize, and the resultant 
combination may be higher than either flood would have been by 
itself. 

A system of flood control designed to be satisfactory for one city 
may be most disastrous to another locality farther downstream. If 
a. system of reservoirs had been in operation in the Allegheny and 
Monongahela Rivers during last January, it would have protected 
Pittsburgh from overflow and diminished the flood at Cincinnati 
when it was 50 feet on the gauge, but only to increase it when it 
attained a height of 60 feet. And this effect would have been propa¬ 
gated to the Gulf. 

Pittsburgh, moreover, would never consent to such a manipula¬ 
tion of reservoirs on the upper tributaries of the Ohio as would 
insure the reduction of floods at Cincinnati or on the lower Missis- 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 121 

sippi. Source stream control on the Mississippi River and its tribu¬ 
taries would therefore soon reduce itself to the question of whose ox 
is to be gored. 

Levees. 


While the use of forests or reservoirs as a means of flood control 
is still in an experimental stage all over the world, the employment 
of levees for this purpose has been tested for centuries. The Po, 
Rhine, Danube, Rhone, and other rivers of Europe have been suc¬ 
cessfully leveed. The laws governing the flow of water in a confined 
stream have been carefully studied, and the construction of levees is 
just as susceptible of mathematical analysis as other engineering 
problems. There is an element of uncertainty in all the forces of 
nature. No one can say positively, for instance, that St. Louis may 
not at some future time experience an earthquake, or a cyclone of 
greater intensity than that which swept over the city in 1896. There 
is also a possibility that there will be some combination of mete¬ 
orological conditions which will create a flood of greater volume than 
has heretofore occurred in any drainage area. But the height to which 
levees should be constructed is as susceptible of determination as the 
strains to be permitted in an office building due to wind pressure or 
the moving load allowable on a bridge. The city engineer solves a 
similar problem whenever he constructs a sewer to carry off the storm 
water from the city streets. 

Nor is there any evidence, either, that floods have been increasing 
in recent years due to the cutting off of forests or that the beds of 
our main rivers are rising as they are leveed. The effect of forests 
on rainfall in Europe has been carefully investigated by Profs. 
Schliehting and Hagen. The records at London, Paris, St. Peters¬ 
burg, and other localities where the rain has been recorded for long 
periods fail to show any tendency to an increased fall in recent 
years. 

The meteorological records of the United States have not been 
maintained a sufficient length of time to be of much value in solving 
the problem. Such data as we possess indicate that the flood dis¬ 
charge has not increased in recent years. The greatest flood of the 
Mississippi at St. Louis occurred in 1844, the next largest in 1875. 
On the Great Lakes the high water of 1838 is the greatest on record. 
In the Ohio the flood of 1884 exceeded that of 1913 at Cincinnati; 
and that of 1832, while 5 feet lower at Cincinnati, was 5 feet higher 
at Pittsburgh than this year’s flood. The gauge records at the 
bridges over the Upper Mississippi, which cover a period of 30 years, 
would indicate that the flow from Minnesota and Wisconsin, where 
the forests have been most extensively destroyed during the period, 
has been slightly improved, though the river shows signs of deterio¬ 
ration where it receives the flow from the prairie lands of Iowa and 
Illinois. They appear to confirm the conclusions of the German 
forestry authorities, that the influence of forests on drainage is con¬ 
cealed by other causes more powerful in their effects. 

The flood of 1912 was not due so much to excessive precipitation 
as to the fact that the surface of the ground was frozen over the 
States of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio so that there was not the sod 
absorption of rain water that usually occurs. 


122 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


Cause of 1913 Flood. 

There is not the remotest connection between deforestation and the 
disasters which have just occurred at numerous cities in Ohio and 
Indiana. The flood of 1832 was similar to that of 1913, but it was 
discharged by streams of the dimension the Creator intended they 
should have. Since then cities have sprung up and land has become 
so valuable that riparian owners have encroached upon the water¬ 
ways. Where the floods formerly flowed untrammeled, factories and 
dwellings have been constructed and numerous bridges have further 
restrained the stream’s discharge. When His laws are violated, 
though slow to anger, the Creator occasionally asserts His might, 
and the works of man crumble before Him. If it would accomplish 
any useful purpose, I could name other cities where conditions are 
as dangerous as at Dayton or Columbus; but the lessons of the 
flood will be forgotten with the burial of its dead. 

The question of the rise of the river bed by levee construction has 
been exhaustively investigated. On the Rhine the maximum effects 
were observed at Dusseldorf, where the same discharge at low water 
appears to attain a height 8 inches greater to-day than it did 100 
years ago, while the same discharge at high water has lowered about 
1 foot in a century. On the Po the maximum observed change in 
low-water conditions was 0.02 of a foot per year, but it is by no means 
proven that even these small changes have resulted from levee con¬ 
struction. They may have arisen from the improvements in the river 
bed which were made simultaneously with levee construction. The 
observations of the Mississippi River Commission agree with the 
Dusseldorf observations in that the Mississippi River appears to be 
slightly enlarging its section, at least at midstages. 

The present contents of the adopted levee line of the Mississippi 
River is about 243,000,000 cubic yards. It has been computed that, 
with an addition of 200,000,000 cubic yards, and at an estimated cost 
of $57,000,000, this line would be safe against any flood which has 
occurred in the Mississippi River. This sum, though large, is less 
than $4 per acre of land protected from overflow, and appears in¬ 
significant when compared with the amounts which are being ex¬ 
pended per acre for irrigation purposes in the arid West. The in¬ 
crease in the value of land on the damage caused by one overflow 
like that of 1912 would pay for the completion of the levee system. 

When a levee line contains but one-half the material that safety 
requires, crevasses afford no argument against levee construction. 
During the flood of 1912 hundreds of miles of levees were topped 
with earth in sacks to a height of from 2 to 4 feet to prevent the 
water flowing over them, and water was seeping through their nar¬ 
rows bases in copious streams, which was unheeded until mud began 
fo flow. The levee which failed at Beulah, Miss., recently was held 
till the pile of sacks exceeded 20 feet in height. 

The holding of 1,525 miles of such levee through the flood of 
1912, even though 13 miles failed, is a powerful argument in favor 
of a properly constructed levee line. There was no failure where 
levees were built to a suitable grade and adequate dimensions, as in 
the upper Yazoo district. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


m 


What He Favors. 

CONCLUSION. 

While of the opinion that levees afford the only practicable 
method of controlling the floods of the Mississippi River, in con¬ 
clusion I desire to state that I am strongly in favor of both refores¬ 
tation and reservoir construction, but limited to the purposes for 
which they are adapted, just as I am in favor of reenforced con¬ 
crete for small bridges, though not considering it applicable to one 
spanning the lower Mississippi River. The price of lumber to-day 
is a sufficient argument for planting trees, without attempting ta 
associate forestry with the climate or with the flood conditions on 
our rivers. If the Federal Government or the States do not con¬ 
serve the forests, the time will soon come when the farmer will 
raise his crop of timber just as he now plants a field of wheat, and 
for the same reason, because it will pay him to use his waste land 
for the purpose. 


WHEN RESERVOIRS ARE NECESSARY. 

Reservoirs are necessary for municipal water supplies, for pur¬ 
poses of irrigation, for the development of power, and for feeders 
to canals. They can be successfully employed on small streams to 
diminish floods or increase the low-water flow. The trouble arises 
when an attempt is made to utilize them for too many purposes at 
the same time. There must be a paramount issue to which the 
others will be subsidiary. 

If the main purpose is to supply a city with water, only the ex¬ 
cess can be used for power development. If the dams are constructed 
to produce power, the reduction of floods and the improvement of 
river navigation must be subordinate thereto. Water required for 
irrigation can only be used to develop power when the dam of the 
storage reservoir is given a greater height than is necessary for its 
flow over the land to be reclaimed. 

During the next decade there will be an enormous development 
of reservoirs, both for irrigation and for power purposes, which I 
hope will be utilized to correct man’s folly and prevent many dis¬ 
asters similar to those which have recently occurred in Indiana and 
Ohio. While the control of the lower Mississippi by reservoirs is 
impracticable, there are numerous smaller streams where they can 
be used with excellent results. 

It is questionable, however, whether such reservoirs should be 
built with the control of our rivers the first object of consideration. 
It will, to be sure, saddle the cost on the United States Treasury, but 
to close down a power plant and stop the growth of crops every 
time the navigation of a minor stream is interfered with, I do not 
consider would be a wise proceeding. 

I am also skeptical of Government ownership. It may have 
worked satisfactorily in irrigation projects, but my own experience 
with Government ownership of water power makes me suspicious. 
I have found that when the Government buys water power, the 


124 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF I HE MISSISSIPPI EIVEE. 


power companies consider it worth $25 per horsepower per year, 
but when conditions are reversed, and an attempt is made to lease it, 
the price drops to 10 cents. 

Wherever it will pay to build a dam for power purposes, capital 
stands ready to construct it, if it can obtain the franchise. By 
regulating the franchise the reservoir can also be used to restrain 
local floods. 

The systematic conservation and regulation by the Government 
of a river from its source to its mouth sounds most attractive, sug¬ 
gesting a scientific solution of every problem of river hydraulics, but 
instead I greatly fear that it is the voice of a siren luring the people 
to an open pork barrel for every stream in the United States. 


Appendix C. 


[Hearings of 1910.] 

MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


Committee on Commerce, 

United States Senate, 

March 0, 1910. 

Senator William P. Frye presiding. 

The Chairman. Judge Taylor is here, I believe. Judge, will you 
please take the stand? 

Statement of Judge Robert S. Taylor. 

Mr. Taylor. Mr. Chairman and Senators. 

The Chairman. Judge Taylor, what is your official position now? 

Mr. Taylor. I am a member of the Mississippi River Commission. 

The Chairman. ITow long have you been in that position? 

Mr. Taylor. Since March, 1881. 

If I am allowed to pursue my own wishes, I will address myself 
to the provision of the bill which makes an appropriation of 
$2,000,000 for the Mississippi River below Cairo. I desire to im¬ 
press upon the committee the emergency which exists for the use of 
that money upon the lower Mississippi. The work of the Govern¬ 
ment upon the river below Cairo has been conducted in the prosecu¬ 
tion of two great projects. One was the improvement of the channel 
for commerce and the other was the reclamation of the alluvial 
valley from floods. One of these projects, the second one, has 
been substantially accomplished, and I do not know any words by 
which I can adequately express the greatness of that work and its 
value. The alluvial valley of the Mississippi below Cairo com¬ 
prises 29,790 square miles of alluvial deposit, extending to a great 
depth, and its products are of the choicest kind. The upper one- 
third of the valley, extending about to Memphis, produces corn in 
the greatest possible perfection and grasses and other crops of that 
character. The central one-third, extending from Memphis to the 
Red River, produces cotton, and the lower one-third, from the Red 
River to the Gulf, produces sugar and rice. 

The protection of the valley against flood by levees began about 
200 years ago at the site of New Orleans. The levees Guilt then 
were very small; they did not need to be high. In time of great 
floods the water spread over the whole valley and flowed down 
to the sea in the form of a great, slowly moving lake of corn- 
30573 0 —H. Rep. 300, 63-2, pt 2-9 125 



126 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


paratively shallow depth. The settlers at New Orleans found them¬ 
selves upon a comparatively high piece of bank land which did not 
need a levee higher than this table here [indicating] to protect them 
from the overflow. The levees gradually extended upstream; the 
progress was very slow indeed; and as they went upstream they 
gradually included in the channel water which had-formerly gone 
over the country at large. The effect was to increase the flood 
height little by little until by the time they had reached Red River 
the flood height had been very materially increased. The Govern¬ 
ment began its cooperation in the work of levee building in 1882. 
Since that time the work has . been prosecuted by the Government 
and the States in cooperation. The Government has expended on 
the levees since that time about $23,000,000, and the States and 
riparian communities have expended 50 per cent more than that at 
least; but the exact amount is not known. 

Senator Burton. You mean $23,000,000 expended by the Gov¬ 
ernment and 50 per cent more expended by the localities—that would 
make $34,500,000. 

Judge Taylor. Yes, sir; they have expended as much as $34,000,000* 
or more than that. 

I think it is entirely safe to say that for every $2 which has been 
expended by the United States Government since 1882 the riparian 
communities have expended $3. The administration of this fund 
in the hands of the Mississippi River Commission has been con¬ 
ducted with a view to securing the best possible degree of coopera¬ 
tion from the riparian communities. It was from the beginning 
the rule of the commission to help most those who helped them¬ 
selves most, and the people all the time have done all that they pos¬ 
sibly could to contribute to the building of the levees. The levee 
lines now extend a distance of nearly 1,500 miles—from the Gulf 
to a point some little distance above Cairo. They have confined 
the flood within the channel with substantial success for nearly 10 
years. The levees that existed before 1882 were light and low and 
weak, as compared with those that exist now. They have been in¬ 
creased very, much in height and strength since 1882. 

The result has been a wonderful development of the country. A 
generation of people have grown up since the work began. They 
have acquired confidence in protection from the floods, and the whole 
valley is alive with progress and prosperity. The value of land has 
increased prodigiously. I know I am not stating anything extrava¬ 
gant when I say that the value of land in the valley since the begin¬ 
ning of the levee work under the cooperation of the Government has 
increased threefold from Cairo to the Gulf on an average. The rail¬ 
roads are threading the country as thickly as in New England. 
Every form of business is in a state of the highest activity: factories, 
mills, banks, and every agency of active business have multiplied to 
a surprising degree. All that is necessary to reclaim the whole valley 
completely and bring it all into a state of cultivation is surface 
drainage, and that work is now in active progress. There have been 
many drainage associations organized under the law and drainage 
canals for carrying away the surface water are being built in all 
parts of the valley at great expense and with great energy. I repeat, 
as I said before, that I do not know where to look in the whole world 
and in all history for so splendid an example of reclamation as has 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 127 

been accomplished by the levees of the Mississippi River. The work 
that has been done would have been impossible without the coopera¬ 
tion of the Government. 1 suppose that if the Government had kept 
its hands off, levees would have been built some time, adequate to 
restrain the floods, but I do not think it would have been—it could 
not have been—accomplished until near the end, or perhaps after the 
end, of this century. No system of levee building by means of forced 
assessments for immediate construction would have been possible 
without sacrifice of a large part of the property in the valley. The 
levee districts have not only taxed themselves in every practicable form, 
b}' taxes on the uncultivated land, by another tax on the cultivated 
land, by taxes on the cotton and other crops, but they have borrowed 
money and have millions outstanding now of levee bonds upon which 
the levee districts have to carry heavy burdens of interest. What 
has been done, Mr. .Chairman, in my opinion, could not have been 
brought about by any possibility in any other way except that in 
which it has been done. It appears to me that a work of reclamation 
which has been so well accomplished and which is of such incalculable 
value is no more to be abandoned—there should be no more thought 
of abandoning it than of abandoning New York Harbor or the 
Panama Canal. 

But we have now reached a crisis in the work. Up to this time 
the commission has been compelled to devote the money appropriated 
to be expended under its direction to immediate and dire emergen¬ 
cies. After word had got along to a point at which a navigable chan¬ 
nel was secured 9 feet in depth, and it had become certain that it 
could be permanently maintained, then the commission devoted its 
energies very largely to the completion of the levee system to a point 
at which it would protect the valley from overflow. It reached that 
point with substantial success nearly 10 years ago. The problem now 
is to preserve them. The danger which threatens them is undermin¬ 
ing by the caving banks. In the face of that danger the ordinary 
recourse has been to move the levee back and make a loop, which will 
carry it away from immediate danger. In the old days, when the 
levees were comparatively small, that was an easy thing to do, but 
the completion of the system so as to hold the floods has necessitated 
the building of levees to much greater height, so that it has become a 
much more serious matter to make a loop than it was 25 years ago. 
Moreover, this sort of situation is frequently occurring: The alluvial 
valley below Cairo has many crescent-shaped lakes which lie near the 
river which are the remains of old river bends which have been cut 
off in the river’s shiftings and left inland, and the ends of which have 
silted up so as to form lakes of crescent shape. 

Now, it is no uncommon thing for an important lme of levee to 
stand on a narrow neck of land between the river and one of those 
lakes. In such a situation it is impossible to make a loop without 
going around the lake, which may take a long distance, and over 
marshy ground, where the building of a levee is pretty nearly imprac¬ 
ticable. In such a case as that the most economical way, and almost 
the only way may be to revet the bank at that place and stop the cav- 
ino- The commission has always been very shy about doing that be¬ 
cause of the expense of revetment, and they have never made revet¬ 
ment for that purpose except under the pressure of the most dire 


128 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


necessities. The first one built was at Bolivar, in Mississippi, in 1888. 
There a very large and costly levee 30 feet high, I should say, at 
its highest point, stood upon a narrow neck of ground only a few 
hundred feet wide between a rapidly caving bank and Lake Bolivar. 
To let that levee go and carry a new one around Lake Bolivar and 
across its outlet bayou would have involved an enormous expense, 
besides throwing out a very large area of cultivated land; and so the 
commission determined to build a revetment at that point to protect 
that levee. That revetment is there to-day, and has been a complete 
success. It has had some extensions and repairs, but in all the years 
that have elapsed since 1888 to the present time the levee has not 
moved or changed, and the revetment has not moved or changed. 

Senator Burton. That was not the first revetment, or was it? 

Mr. Taylor. No; not the first revetment, but it was the first revet¬ 
ment built for the express purpose of protecting a levee at a critical 
strategic point. The next one built was at Lake Providence, farther 
down, in 1894. The town of Lake Providence is situated upon the 
bank of a lake by that name close to the Mississippi River, and cav¬ 
ing had approached to within a very short distance of the levee. To 
Jet the levee go was to let the town go and require the building of 
another levee around Lake Providence, and to do that it would be 
necessary to cross the Tensas Bayou, a project that would have been 
expensive and difficult in the extreme. That revetment was put in in 
1894 and has been entirely successful. It stopped the caving, and 
the town of Lake Providence has been saved, and all the country 
round about there has been saved from inundations, which it would 
have been almost impossible to prevent otherwise. Such emergencies 
as these when they come are dreadful. The alternative of letting a 
levee go under those circumstances is one to stagger a man. This 
situation has been coming along gradually for 10 years, and it be¬ 
came acute, I should say, about four years ago, when the Rivers and 
Harbors Committee of the House was framing the last rivers and 
harbors bill. The committee had made up its mind to make an appro¬ 
priation of $2,000,000 for the current year and $2,000,000 more per 
annum for the three years following. I went before the committee 
and presented facts substantially like those I have just stated. I 
asked that we might have $3,000,000 per annum instead of $2,000,000. 
I got down on my knees to the chairman, Senator Burton, as I think 
you will remember, Senator. 

Senator Burton. I do not quite remember that. You mean meta¬ 
phorically? 

Mr. Taylor. Metaphorically; yes, sir; and he finally consented to 
allow us an extra million for that year, and I think he did it more 
because I was on my knees than for any other reason. I begged it of 
him. That million dollars was worth several millions to the river. 
With that million dollars we were able to do some work of tremendous 
importance. Since that time we have been getting along on two 
millions a year—as Eliza crossed the river, in Uncle Tom’s Cabin; as 
you will remember, she crossed the Ohio River at Cincinnati about 
this time of year, with her baby in her arms, by jumping from one 
cake of ice to another. For the last three years we have been just 
jumping from one cake of ice to another. We have been in the face 
all the time of tremendous possible disasters. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 129 

A crevasse is always a disaster, but a crevasse now, when the levees 
have got so high that it means an outpour from a head of 12 or 15 
feet across a valley 20 miles wide, filled with people, plantations, 
houses, towns, and all that pertains to going society, becomes a dread¬ 
ful calamity. We have felt as if we must not let that occur if we 
could possibly help it. To illustrate the straits we are in, I may say 
that, the last time we went down the river we had just $10,000 left 
in the locker from the previous appropriation. There was a place in 
the levee in the upper part of the valley where for some 5 or 6 miles 
the embankment was too low to stand a severe flood; and there was a 
revetment way down the river, just above Natchez, that is also greatly 
important. The question came up as we went down whether we 
would use that last $10,000 to bring that piece of levee up to grade 
or put it on the revetment at Giles Bend, and we did not decide the 
question until we got down to Giles Bend and looked at it. We had 
the question before us all the way down the river, what we should 
do with that last $10,000. When we got to Giles Bend we made up 
our minds that we would better put it on the levee. We proceeded 
on the theory of the Irish inspector of railroad wheels, who hit a 
wheel a lick just as a passenger stuck his head out of the window and 
said, “ It seems to me that wheel is cracked.” The inspector said, “ It 
is, sorr; but I think it will hold until the next station.” We made 
up our minds that the revetment at Giles Point would hold until 
next year, while it was certain that we would have a crevasse in the 
Beelfoot levee with a very high flood. The $10,000 was enough to 
make that safe, as we thought. 

I have spoken about the disaster of a crevasse. It is always bad 
enough, but at this time, when the people have just learned what it 
is to feel safe and business and prosperity are booming, a few bad 
crevasses would be such a shock to confidence that the consequence 
in that way would be ten times as great a disaster as the destruction 
of the property by the overflow. Now, we are at this time confronted 
by conditions in a number of places where that disaster threatens and 
may occur at any time; and where there is no way of saving the levees 
except by revetting the banks in front of them; and for that purpose 
we ought to have $4,000,000 this year, and the next year, and for sev¬ 
eral years. 

Revetments are expensive work. A revetment requires a floating 
plant of something like 25 pieces, and costs something like $150,000. 
As a rule a plant can not do more than 4,000 feet in a season. Revet¬ 
ment can only be put in when the water is at a suitable stage, and 
experience has shown that we can sometimes, in a very favorable 
season, put in 5,000 feet with one plant; we can not count on more 
than 4,000 feet on an average. We have at the present time six 
revetment plants on the river, so that we are not in a situation to put 
in more than about 24,000 feet a year. If we could receive this year 
an appropriation of $4,000,000, we could provide five or six new 
revetment plants. We do not want more than $4,000,000 this year. 
There is a limit to the rapidity with which revetments can be profit¬ 
ably put in. The limit is found partly in the quantity of plant re¬ 
quired and partly in the practicability of getting labor, but more 
than that in the supply of brush from which they are made. It takes 
about 34 cords of brush per running foot of revetment. We have 


130 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


heretofore in late years counted the cost of revetment at $30 a foot, 
but it is growing on us a little, and I expect that for the next 5 or 10 
years they will cost as much as $33 to $35 a running foot. 

With $4,000,000 we could take care of the critical points in the 
river as rapidly as we could do it profitably under any circumstance. 
The places where revetments are immediately and imperatively neces¬ 
sary extend all the way from a few miles below Cairo to Natchez. 
A number of them are necessary to prevent cut-offs. I do not know 
to what extent the members of this committee are familiar with cut¬ 
offs, and what they are, or why they ought to be prevented. A man’s 
first thought, in looking at a map of the Mississippi River, naturally, 
is that its numerous bends are defects and it would be better without 
them. In fact, President Hayes, who appointed the first Mississippi 
River Commission, said to Gen. Gilmore, the first president, when he 
came in to express his thanks for the honor conferred, that he sup¬ 
posed the first thing the commission would do would be to take some 
of the kinks out of the river. But this is the truth about it: There is 
a certain relation between the velocity of the current and the resist¬ 
ing power of the bank in which stability of the channel is possible. 
If the bank is softer, it will erode faster: if the current is more rapid, 
it will erode faster, and vice versa. The river, by the laws of nature, 
•is endeavoring all the time to find that relation between velocity of 
current and resisting power in the bank by which it may have a 
stable flow. As a caving bend extends back into the country, it in¬ 
creases the length of the river and so diminishes its slope, but in that 
process of lengthening its bend it tends.to turn upon itself and so 
cut off its own neck, and that shortens its length again. The short¬ 
ening will be equal to the difference between the distance across the 
neck and the distance around the bend, which may be as 15 or 20 
miles to a thousand feet. The important fact is that the cut-off intro¬ 
duces into the river at that point a fall, it may be of 6 or 8 feet, which 
produces such a violent increase of the velocity for miles above and 
below the cut-off that the river proceeds at once to attack its banks 
with renewed violence and lengthen its bends again. So, bv extending 
its bends and increasing its length and then cutting off the necks and 
decreasing its length, the river is engaged in the constant effort to 
find some equilibrium between its velocity and the resisting power of 
its banks. 

A study has been made of all known maps extending back as 
far as data can be obtained and comparison made of the changes, 
and it is known that the deepening of the bends in the last century 
has been enough to increase the river’s length by many miles, and 
also that the cut-offs have been enough to reduce its length a great 
deal. I believe it was Mark Twain who said if the caving went on 
uninterruptedly for a century or so New Orleans would be 5,000 
miles from St. Louis, and on the other hand if the cut-off process 
went on for a couple of hundred years New Orleans would be a 
suburb of St. Louis. As it is, a study of the subject has shown that 
the river has not perceptibly changed its length within a century. 
Its caving bends and cut-offs have compensated each other upon the 
whole during all that time. I wish I had the map here which you 
once had in the room occupied by your committee. It was a large 
wall map prepared by the Mississippi River Commission which 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


131 


showed the river and adjacent country from Cairo to the Gulf, in¬ 
cluding lands liable to overflow, levees, lakes, and bayous, all in de¬ 
tail. It would be invaluable for your use just now. I suggest that 
you make a requisition upon Col. Bixby right now to send you one 
from St. Louis. If I had that map it would delight me to show 
you one little stretch of river, known as the u Greenville Bends,” 
where there are four great bends, one immediately above the other, 
around which for a hundred years the river has flowed without ma¬ 
terial change and maintained for itself a perfect channel. 

But the demon of unrest has at last invaded those bends, and as 
long ago as 1890 the neck of the upper one began to cut away rap¬ 
idly, and there was serious danger of a cut-off. Now, a cut-off in 
one of those bends—there being four of them, one right above the 
other—would introduce such a violent disturbance in the river that 
the bends would all go one after the other very quickly, and with 
all those bends cut out there would be chaos in that part of the river 
for half a century or more to come. So the commission began to 
build a revetment at the upper one—Ashbrook Neck, it is called— 
as long ago as 1890 and has maintained it ever since, and so has 
prevented a cut-off there. But quite lately the river has suddenly 
att acked the lower one of those necks—Lei and Neck, it is called— 
with such fury that there is only about 700 feet remaining now 
which the river will have to go through in order to make a cut-off. 
A revetment has been begun there and should be prosecuted with all 
possible energy. To prevent a cut-off at that place is the most 
emergent piece of work on the whole Mississippi River. 

Senator Btjrton. How long is the revetment that is required 
there? 

Mr. Taylor. We can not tell just how long it will have to be. 
It can not be less than a mile, and maybe 2 miles, or possibly more. 
It is necessary to cover all the bank that is caving at the time; gen- 
erally something like a mile to start with. Then, if the caving shows 
a disposition to extend, the revetment is extended accordingly. I 
should think that it will be necessary to put in 2 or 3 miles of 
revetment at Leland Neck within the next two years. 

Senator Bourne. What would be the destruction of property if 
that cut-off took place? 

Mr. Taylor. That could not be estimated at all. 

Senator Bourne. The destruction would be enormous? 

Mr. Taylor. Enormous beyond any figures. That cut-off would 
precipitate another at once. These slender necks, one above the other, 
would go like a row of bricks—knock one down and you knock them 
all down. 

Senator Burton. What is the fall from the upper side to the 
lower side? 

Mr. Taylor. In high water? 

Senator Burton. Yes. 

Mr. Taylor. It is the fall around the bend. 

Senator Burton. I know. But how much is that? 

Mr. Taylor. I should think it is not less than 7 or 8 feet. 

Senator Burton. Cutting across one neck in itself would not do 
any harm especially ? 

Mr. Taylor. No, sir. 


132 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

Senator Burton. But the different course the channel would 
take- 

Mr. Taylor. The effect would be to induce a great increase of 
velocity in that part of the river which would extend for 50 miles 
and more up and down the stream. The cutting off of those four 
necks would induce a fall of 25 or 30 feet in the river. No one can 
tell anything about what the consequences would be of such a pro¬ 
digious change. 

Senator Bourne. It would flood an enormous extent of territory ? 

Mr. Taylor. Yes, sir; a great extent of territory, and, what is 
worse, it would tear the banks and levees all to pieces. It would, for 
one thing, I think, destroy the city of Greenville in short order. 

There was a cut-off in 1884 at Waterproof, which is about 20 miles 
above the city of Natchez. That is the only cut-off that has taken 
place in the Mississippi River within 30 years. I saw that almost at 
the moment it occurred. The river was high. We went down in our 
steamboat past the upper side of the bend and around the point. 
There was no indication of any trouble as we went along the upper 
side of the bend, but when we got around to the lower side there was 
a roar like Niagara, and the water was coming across the neck in 
great leaps, and by the next morning the steamboats were going up 
and down that channel. That cut-off introduced such an increased 
activity in the river that it immediately threatened another cut-off 
at Giles Bend, a little above Natchez. The caving on the upper side 
of Giles Bend was so accelerated by the Waterproof cut-off that with¬ 
in three years we had to begin a revetment there, and we have been 
at work at it ever since. We have got above 5 miles of revetment in 
that bend now. It has been a very difficult thing to keep that neck 
from being cut off. 

I have spoken so far of revetments as means of preventing cut-offs 
and protecting levees, but if we are to look forward to the develop¬ 
ment and maintenance of a deep channel down the Mississippi River, 
whether it be 14 feet or less or more, then revetment assumes impor¬ 
tance for another and entirely different purpose. The only impedi¬ 
ment to navigation in the Mississippi River is the bars. These bars 
come almost entirely from the caving banks. There is some sediment 
coming into the Mississippi River at Cairo from the Missouri, but 
it is a comparatively small portion. Altogether the greater part of 
the sand which builds up the bars comes from the banks in the vi¬ 
cinity. The sand and loam scoured out of a bend are carried—I 
should say partly carried and partly pushed and rolled—along the 
bottom to the foot of the bend, where it crosses the channel into the 
next bend below. At the point where it crosses the channel the 
current loses its velocity to a large degree, and with the loss of ve¬ 
locity has less power to transport sediment. Hence it deposits a 
large part of its load on the crossing below the bend from which it 
was taken, and that happens at every crossing. The greater part of 
the material that forms the bars comes from caving bends not far 
above. If the channel of the Mississippi could be emptied out dry 
and clean so that you could travel up and down it you would find 
yourself passing through a series of small hills and valleys. You 
would go through a crescent-shaped depression or valley with a bank 
at your side 80 or 100 feet high. Then you would ascend a sand hill 



FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 138 

not quite so high, and then you would descend into another valley 
and then over another sand hill, and so on. Now, when the bed is 
filled with water these sand hills come up nearly to the top, and they 
constitute the only obstruction there is to navigation. In order to 
make the river navigable, we must cut off the tops of those bars. 
There are about 43 of them below Cairo that obstruct navigation 
now, or about that. What we do now is to trim off the tops of those 
sand bars with dredges. Their average length is about 800 feet, in 
some cases several hundred feet more than that. 

Senator Burton. Do you mean downstream? 

Mr. Taylor. Yes, sir; downstream. They are, as a rule, about 
800 feet long. I have sometimes been asked the question, very fre¬ 
quently, in fact, whether the improvement of the lower Mississippi 
to a 14-foot depth is practicable. I answer without hesitation that 
it is. But, for a reason which will be apparent when you think 
about it a minute, the difficulty of making a channel in this way 
increases rapidly as you go deeper. In order to make a 9-foot chan¬ 
nel we have to cut off, say, 4 feet from the top of the bar, which is 
a common experience and an easy thing to do. For a 14-foot chan¬ 
nel we would have to cut off 9 feet from the top of the same bar. 
We would have to cut not only deeper, but for a greater distance, to 
include the slope of the bar above and below. The cut would have 
to be made longer and deeper and wider, too. When it comes to 
that we may introduce changes in the regime of the river which we 
can not exactly foresee. You see, at low water these bars are dams 
between pools; there is a pool in the bend above the bar and there 
is a pool below, and when you cut through the dam the tendency of 
the increased flow is to lower the pool above a little bit. As little 
as 4 feet does not produce any visible change in the elevation of the 
pools above or below, but if we undertake to make a channel 14 feet 
deep and make a cut across the top of the bar 9 feet deep and 800 
feet wide we will let the water out of the upper pool into the lower 
pool in very large quantities, and if we repeat that process at every 
bar the tendency will be to lower the whole surface of the river at 
low water, and that will bring up more bars that are now too far 
down to give trouble. 

Senator Burton. That is true even when you are dredging ? 

Mr. Taylor. Yes, sir. In our present operations we do not pay 
any attention to bars that are more than 9 feet below the surface of 
the water, but if we introduce such a number of large cuts across the 
bars as will let down the low-water surface of the river, so that bars 
that are not troubling us now will have to be looked after, we have 
to dredge more and more bars and go deeper and deeper, and will 
come by and by to a point where the work will become exceedingly 
difficult. I do not say it can not be carried to 24 feet, but I do say 
we will find it tremendously difficult to do it and keep that depth. 

Now, to do anything like that, Mr. Chairman and Senators, to 
get even 14 feet, it will be necessary, I think, that we shall reduce the 
quantity of sand which is eroded from the banks and deposited on 
the bars. Every revetment that is put in and holds its place stops 
that much caving and cuts off that much of the supply upon which 
the bars are fed. If the caving banks were all revetted the bars 
would be starved out; they would not disappear entirely, but they 


134 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


would be reduced to such small proportions that you would have a 
deep natural channel. I believe that if the banks were all revetted 
the river would become navigable to 14 feet without any other sort of 
an improvement at all. If we have in mind the probability of looking 
for further depths in the Mississippi River, the course we want to 
pursue is to greatly increase the number of revetments, with the view 
of diminishing the activity of bar building. It is certainly true that 
the revetment of caving banks diminishes the activity of bar build¬ 
ing. There is a stretch of river called Plum Point Reach, about 75 
miles above Memphis, where a large number of revetments were put 
in years ago and a large number of them are yet there. For 40 or 50 
miles below that reach there has been a noticeable diminution of bars. 
They are of less height than they once were, and I think the evidence 
is clear that they have shrunk in consequence of the revetments that 
have been put in above them; and there is nothing to account for it 
that I know of except the diminution of bar-building activity due to 
the revetments in Plum Point Reach. 

If we ever expect to greatly increase the depth in the Mississippi 
River below Cairo, revetments will be necessary. Nothing can be 
more certain than that; and inasmuch as every revetment that is put 
in now to protect the levee at a critical point will contribute at once 
to the diminution of bar-building activity and also to protect the 
levee and so do service in two directions at once, I say, gentlemen, 
that I know of no place in all the United States where you can put 
$4,000,000 with more certainty of useful results than right there. 

Senator Burton. Do you think this $4,000,000 which you have 
asked for is necessary for the protection of the work already done by 
the Government? 

Mr. Taylor. Yes, sir; it is. 

Senator Bourne. And for protection of property on the side? 

Mr. Taylor. Yes, sir. 

• Senator Bourne. And also looking toward the future improvement 
of navigation by deepening the river? 

Mr. Taylor. Yes, sir. 

Senator Burton. What share of the sand-bar building material, as 
you term it, in the river below Cairo originates from the caving of 
the banks, and what share comes in from above? You never made 
any calculation on that, 1 suppose, but your statement gives less 
importance to that which flows in from above Cairo than some have 
given to it. 

Mr. Taylor. I know it does; but I think I am right there. 

Senator Burton. Now, reducing it to fractions, approximately, 
what would you say it was from the Mississippi River above Cairo 
and what share developed in that section? 

Mr. Taylor. I should say, without any hesitation, although you 
must know that this is largely conjecture, yet I should say without 
hesitation that not 1 per cent of it comes from above Cairo. 

Senator Burton. Comes in from above? 

Mr. Taylor. No, sir. 

Senator Burton. How about that material which is here? What 
rate of progress does it make downstream ? 

Mr. Taylor. It is moving downstream all the time. I am not able 
to say at what rate or how many miles a year, but the caving, as a 
rule, begins at the upper end of the bend and increases in activity as 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 135 

it approaches the lower end, so that the result of the year’s work is 
to move the bend downstream a little. In this way the bends are all 
the time moving downstream slowly. 

Senator Burton. You would not be able to give anv estimate of 
the rate? 

Mr. Taylor. No, sir. 

Senator Burton. And the place of that that goes down is supplied 
by that that comes in from above? 

Mr. Taylor. Yes, sir. 

Senator Burton. Now, as I understand you on this problem of the 
improvement of the navigation of the river, you think the only ef¬ 
fective way in which to obtain a material increase in depth is by 
revetting the banks ? 

Mr. Taylor. Yes, sir. That is necessary, in my opinion. 

Senator Burton. You would eliminate dredging? 

Mr. Taylor. You could not eliminate dredging for the present. 

Senator Burton. I mean as an absolute reliance? 

Mr. Taylor. Yes, sir. 

Senator Burton. Of course you have to have dredging ? 

Mr. Taylor. Yes, sir. 

Senator Burton. You do not think you would get 5 additional 
feet by dredging? You have 9 now. 

Mr. Taylor. No, sir. I do not think you could get 5 additional 
feet by dredging. We tried two experiments; one last year and 
one the year before. We experimented on two or three bars to see 
if we could get 14 feet by dredging. We made a success on two of 
them and a failure on the third. The result of the experiment as a 
whole was to indicate that an attempt to get 14 feet by dredging in 
the present condition of the river would be uncertain and unreliable. 

Senator Burton. To increase the depth of spur dikes or by con¬ 
tracting the width of the channel would be a very different question. 

Mr. Taylor. You could not do that. 

Senator Burton. Or by dams or anjdhing of that kind ? 

Mr. Taylor. I do not think so. 

Senator Burton. Now, we come to the point of deepening the 
channel by revetment, the most reliable but a very slow process. 

Mr. Taylor. Bound to be slow; yes, sir. 

Senator Burton. And it would take a good many years? 

Mr. Taylor. A good many years, and slower and slower as you 
went on. I would like to say this before I forget it, and that is we 
could give you 10 feet now without any trouble in two years. My 
opinion is that it would be a wise thing for Congress to do to make a 
requirement of 10 feet, and I think it would be a good thing to put 
in the bill this year that the work shall be conducted with a view to 
obtaining 10 feet from Cairo down within the next two years. 

Senator Burton. One foot additional to the present depth? 

Mr. Taylor. Yes, sir. 

Senator Burton. Would you require any additional equipment 
in the way of dredges for that ? 

Mr. Taylor. I do not believe we would. 

Senator Burton. In going up and down the river are there 
complaints of shallow depth ? 

Mr. Taylor. No, sir. 


136 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI EIVER. 

Senator Burton. The sole appeal is for the protection of prop¬ 
erty? 

Mr. Taylor. That is the only outcry now. 

Senator Burton. The applications that are coming now do not 
ask for a greater depth of water? 

Mr. Taylor. No, sir. 

Senator Burton. Never have, have they? 

Mr. Taylor. Oh, yes. 

Senator Burton. That was where there was a shallow place on 
a bar or something of that kind, they would ask you ? 

Mr. Taylor. Yes, sir. 

Senator Burton. Conceding your claim for $4,000,000 as a maxi¬ 
mum amount, could you economically spend any more than that on 
this river? 

Mr. Taylor. No, sir; I think not. 

Senator Burton. Could you ever, in years to come ? 

Mr. Taylor. I do not know, but not for a few years to come. 

Senator Burton. Four million dollars a year you regard as the 
maximum amount that you could economically spend on the river? 

Mr. Taylor. Yes, sir; I believe it is. 

Senator Burton. What is your opinion as to the shallow-draft 
and deep-draft navigation in that locality? 

Mr. Taylor. My opinion is that this country has a great lesson 
to learn as to the value of shallow-draft navigation. Of course 
there is great economy in deep-draft navigation—the value of a 
channel for navigation increases with the square of its depth, I sup¬ 
pose you might say—but at the same time there is a great value in 
shallow navigation. I look forward to the time when we shall have 
in this country a vast system of internal waterways of all depths, 
from a few inches to many feet, all of which will be made useful 
and profitable. 

I have been watching for two or three years an experiment in 
the Mississippi Valley with gasoline motor boats. The boat con¬ 
sists of a barge not much longer than this table and not more than 
twice as wide as this table—just a box like a piano box; a water¬ 
tight box not more than 3 feet high. The gasoline motor at the 
stern is about as large as an automobile, and propelled by some sort 
of a gasoline engine. I have seen more of them about Vicksburg 
than elsewhere. These boats load up 2 or 3 or 4 tons of freight— 
maybe more. I do not know how much—and go up the bayous 
of the Yazoo Basin and the little streams there through "the 
narrow, shallow channels that intersect that basin. They do not 
draw more than a foot and a half, and they seem to be doing a good 
business and increasing rapidly. They are like what you might call 
an aquatic truck. One man does the whole business. The owner 
sits in the stern and is captain, pilot, and engineer, all in one. 

Senator Burton. In the navigation below Cairo, with the excep¬ 
tion of the coal that comes down the Ohio River, there is practically 
no long-distance navigation, is there? 

Mr. Taylor. Not much, although I run across—every once in a 
while I run across shippers who tell me that they shipped their 
freight on the Mississippi upstream as well as down. I happen to 
know a member of a large drug firm in St. Louis who told me the 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 137 

other day that they were shipping all their oriental stuff, their olive 
oil, barks, essences, and drugs that come from the Mediterranean 
and eastern countries entirely by water—by ocean vessels to New 
Orleans and from there to St. Louis by river. 

Senator Burton. They have no through passenger boats now? 

Mr. Taylor. There are no through passenger lines from St. Louis 
to New Orleans. 

Senator Burton. They ship on freight boats? 

Mr. Taylor. Yes, sir." 

Senator Burton. There is very considerable traffic south from 
Memphis to Helena, is there not? 

Mr. Taylor. Yes, sir. 

Senator Burton. And from Vicksburg to Natchez? 

Mr. Taylor. Yes, sir. There are lines of boats from New Orleans 
to Memphis that carry passengers, and there is a line from Memphis 
down to Vicksburg and lines from Vicksburg to New Orleans. 

Senator Burton. There are no through passenger or freight boats 
from Cairo? 

Mr. Taylor. I can not say about that. 

Senator Burton. You are familiar with the line at New Or¬ 
leans that they call the Mississippi Valley Transportation Co.? 

Mr. Taylor. Yes, sir. 

b Senator Burton. Up to just a few years ago they carried con¬ 
siderable freight down the river? 

Mr. Taylor. Yes, sir. 

Senator Burton. When was it at its height? 

Mr. Taylor. I think its greatest development must have been 
between 1870 and 1880. 

Senator Burton. The same company? 

Mr. Taylor. The same company, I think so. These boats were 
at their greatest activity before the Mississippi Biver Commission 
commenced its work. 

Senator Burton. In what way did they carry their freight? I 
think the committee would like to know. 

Mr. Taylor. They carried their freight in barges, handled by 
stern-wheel towboats—a number of barges by one towboat. They 
had no trouble in taking down 50,000 bushels of grain in one tow. 

Senator Frye. Any of those gasoline boats on the Mississippi 
Biver ? 

Mr. Taylor. Not on the Mississippi Biver proper; they are too 
little for that. 

Senator Gallinger. Have you given any thought to the type of 
barge used in Germany ? I think it is 206 feet long, carries 600 tons, 
with a draft of 5J feet. 

Mr. Taylor. I have given no thought to it at all. 

Senator Burton. The usual barge is something over 1,000 tons. 

Senator Gallinger. They have one type of 600 tons. 

Mr. Taylor. I have seen them on the Biver Bhine; that is all I 
know about it. 

Senator Gallinger. What do you think of the possibilities of using 
them on the Mississippi Biver ? 

Mr. Taylor. I do not see any reason why they should not be used 
to a very great extent. There is a channel of 9 feet from Cairo to 


138 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


New Orleans, and 9 feet is sufficient for highly profitable navigation, 
in my opinion. 

'Senator Burton. What is the reason commerce will not use it? 

Mr. Taylor. There are a whole lot of reasons. The answer to that 
is almost as comprehensive as another committee is expected to give 
why fines have increased. The main cause, in my opinion, is want of 
confidence. 

The Chairman. In the river ? 

Mr. Taylor. Yes, sir; in the permanence of the improvement. 

Senator Burton. That is, if they had 9 feet permanently they 
could well- 

Mr. Taylor. Yes; but that 9 feet is dependent upon appropriations 
made by Congress from year to year. 

Senator Burton. Congress had appropriated enough for the other 
years? 

Mr. Taylor. They have done so of late, but not always in the past. 
Shippers are not sure they will in the future. 

Senator Burton. I think, so far as dredging is concerned, you 
could have confidence in that. 

Mr. Taylor. River navigation depends upon individual endeavor. 
To build a fleet of boats to navigate the Mississippi River profitably 
would cost several millions of dollars, and it is not surprising that 
men hesitate to do it. It is not strange, in view of the history of the 
river. Thirty years ago there was a great clamor for the improve¬ 
ment of the channel. The Mississippi River Commission came in 
with a blare of trumpets; they were going to get 8 feet right away. 
That goes back, I expect, beyond the active recollection of you 
gentlemen about this subject. 

The Chairman. Not beyond mine. 

Mr. Taylor. Not beyond your recollection if you were giving 
attention to it at that time. If you had time, I would like to give 
you a little bit of history there; it is interesting. As soon as the 
Eads jetties had been successfully opened in 1878 by the contraction 
of the channel and the increase of the flow over the bar, people said 
at once, Why can not we apply that principle to the whole river? 
Capt. Eads thought we could. He said we could; and Capt. Eads’s 
word went a great way in that day. The Mississippi River Commis¬ 
sion was created upon the faith of the country in Capt. Eads. He 
was one of its members at the beginning. It was called Eads Com¬ 
mission for some years. 

The Chairman. Let me remind you right there that Capt. Eads 
was going to cross the Isthmus; he was going to send the ships over 
on rails. 

Mr. Taylor. I know he was. I watched that project some, too. 
Capt. Eads wrote the first report. He formulated the original plan, 
which was for the improvement of the channel by concentration 
of flow solely and alone. He proposed to bring the low-water width 
of the river to approximately 3.000 feet along its whole course. This 
was to be accomplished by holding the caving banks by revetment 
and by building up banks where the river was abnormally wide 
by deposits of sediment produced by dikes. We started in on that 
plan, and selected a place called Plum Point Reach, 75 miles above 
Memphis, and another one called Lake Providence Reach, about the 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 139 

same distance above Vicksburg. They were the worst places in the 
nver. We started in with high hopes, and were going to have 8 
teet to Cairo in short order. But we encountered all sorts of unex¬ 
pected difficulties. We did not know how to build revetments for 
such conditions. We started out with mattresses about 300 feet long 
and 125 feet wide. Those would do very well on the Missouri, but 
they would not do down there. We gradually increased them in 
size and improved them in construction, but for several years the 
work of revetment was so unfortunate that in 1884 Congress pro¬ 
hibited any further revetments on the Mississippi River. 

Senator Gallinger. When was that, Judge? 

Mr. Taylor. I think that was in 1884. The Secretary of War con¬ 
strued that prohibition to mean that we could not even repair those 
we had, and we lost millions of dollars because of the prohibition. 
But it was soon withdrawn. 

Senator Burton. When was it changed? 

Mr. Taylor. I think it was in force two years, but I am not certain 
whether it was two or four. 

The Chairman. I think it was two years only. 

Senator Burton. That is entirely new to me. It was before my 
time. Do you mean that there was an express prohibition of revet¬ 
ment by Congress in making an appropriation? 

Mr. Taylor. Yes. sir; an express prohibition of revetment in the 
appropriation bill. 

The Chairman. Senator Burton, the evidence justified it at the 
time. 

Mr. Taylor. There was a good deal to justify it. Then, in regard 
to what we called contraction work, the dikes that were built upon 
the bars to narrow the channel. This contraction work was surpris¬ 
ingly successful at the start. We obtained some prodigious deposits 
of sediment in the chutes and bars where we were trying to build 
up land. I have known as much as 30 feet of deposit to be made 
in one season as a consequence of permeable dikes that we set up. 

The Chairman. On top of the dikes? 

Mr. Taylor. No; below the dikes. But these dikes had a bad 
habit of doing their work wonderfully well until they built up the 
deposit to a point where it became most important that they should 
continue to do it, and then they would quit and let the floods go 
across, cutting into the deposits that had formed and making little 
channels across them. Then, if the dikes were a little too high, the 
drift coming down the river would break them off, and if they were 
a little too low the water would go through without making the 
deposits, so that part of the work proved to be very, very difficult. 
And yet, with all these embarassments, Mr. Chairman, we did make 
substantial and useful headway in developing the channel at Plum 
Point and Lake Providence Reaches. We did demonstrate that the 
theory upon which we were going was sound in all its parts. 

Where the work was put in and kept in; where the revetments 
on the banks held; where the width was narrowed to 3,000 feet, we 
got an immediate improvement of the channel. We were working 
then for 8 feet, and we got 8 feet through the improved reaches at 
Plum Point and Lake Providence. But as we went along the ex¬ 
pense increased enormously; we estimated revetments at the begin- 


140 * FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

ning to cost $12 a running foot. We improved our revetments as 
they never had been improved in the world. Our engineers ac¬ 
quired a skill in making and sinking mattresses that never had been 
acquired before. Where we began with mattresses 300 feet long 
and 125 feet wide, we increased the dimensions to 1,200 feet long 
and 300 feet wide. There were improvements in manner of con¬ 
struction as important as the increase in size. At last we reached 
the point where we could hold the banks, but the cost had in¬ 
creased to $30 a running foot. But in all those years—fifteen or 
more—we had never been able to get out of those reaches. 

Senator Newlands. Get out of those reaches? 

Mr. Taylor. Yes; those two reaches, Plum Point and Lake Provi¬ 
dence. We made an improved channel there, a highly improved 
channel, and if we could have secured as good a channel from 
Cairo to New Orleans as we did in those two reaches, our work 
would have been a great triumph. 

Senator Newlands. On an average, how much did you have 
annually ? 

Mr. Taylor. I should say, on a rough average, Senator, something 
like two millions a year. 

Senator Burton. For the first few years it was several hundred 
thousand in excess of that. 

Senator Newlands. And you now think you could spend $4,000,000 
advantageously ? 

Mr. Taylor. Yes, sir. 

Senator Newlands. Do you think that would be enough for the 
next 10 years? 

Mr. Taylor. I believe so. As I was saying, we spent all our money 
in Plum Point and Lake Providence reaches, and we made an im¬ 
proved channel there; that much was of little value. The commercial 
interests on the river became discouraged. The men who owned the 
steamboats and barges were waiting for the improvement of the 
channel, waiting and waiting, and it did not come. It did not do any 
good to have a good channel for 20 miles at Plum Point and 20 miles 
at Lake Providence while there were bars elsewhere. The old steam¬ 
boats and barges were wearing out and their owners did not dare to 
build new ones. We made a careful estimate of how long it would 
take us to carry this kind of improvement to Cairo, and we found 
that at the best we could hope to do, considering the supply of mate¬ 
rial, the work to be done, and what we supposed would be the pos¬ 
sible appropriation by Congress, it would take 50 years at least. That 
would not answer the purpose of commerce. Those were dark days. 
For several years the commission was in a position where it could 
have been accused of having thrown away millions of dollars in the 
Mississippi Kiver without any results. For several years I felt like 
I was sitting on a powder magazine and didn’t know what day some 
enterprising newspaper man might not ransack the records and show 
us up to be a set of utter incompetents. Just at that time there came 
into view the hydraulic dredge which had lately been introduced in 
this country, and the thought came to us that we might, after all, 
with the help of the dredge, solve this problem of a channel. 

I remember having said once in a speech somewhere that, as for 
this idea of dredging bars, a man might as well undertake to lower a 
flood by carting away the water as to handle the Mississippi sand bars 
with dredges. We had a very bright engineer at that time in the 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 141 

fourth district at New Orleans. We also had a hard problem to deal 
with at the mouth of Old River to keep that channel open to the com¬ 
merce of Red River, and we had been trying to do it with a dredge. 
The mud in that river is like soft soap and as fast as we dipped it up 
and put it on the bank it would run in again. We sent Capt. Millis 
around the United States to study the subject of hydraulic dredges, 
and as a result of that trip he designed a dredge to be used on the Red 
River. That dredge was a wonderful piece of machinery, and we 
have never had any trouble since keeping the mouth of the river open 
for navigation. Then, in view of the success of Capt. Millis, we Avent 
to work and built an experimental dredge for trial on the bars of the 
Mississippi River. One of the members of the commission designed 
it and we called it the Alpha —a very good name, the first of its kind. 
The result of those experiments were so successful that Ave were en¬ 
couraged to go further. It was manifest that the success of the work 
would depend upon being able to get through a bar so quickly that 
the current could take possession of the cut and keep it open before it 
would fill up. We called to our assistance the three best engineers of 
that class in the United States. We took them on the boat and took 
them down the river and we showed them what we had to do, and 
spent several days in consultation. We said, “ What do you think you 
can do under these conditions with a hydraulic dredge? We want 
you to make us a dredge just as poAverful as machinery can be to float 
in this water. We want to find out how quickly it is possible to cut 
through a bar.” We said, “ We want each one of you to give us a 
design for a hydraulic dredge for this work with an estimate of the 
cost at Avhich you are willing to undertake to build it, and Ave will give 
a contract to one of you. We Avant to make certain specifications our¬ 
selves. We want the dredge to be capable of handling at least 1,600 
cubic yards of sand an hour and transporting it a thousand feet 
through a pontoon pipe; the boat to have a draft not to exceed 6 feet 
and a width not exceeding 40 feet; Ave AA^ant each one of you to design 
a dredge which he thinks will have the best possible adaptation to 
that work, and we Avill take one of them—not necessarily the cheapest 
one, but the one which we think will do our work the best and most 
adA^antageous to buy, counting price as one consideration, and we will 
give each one of the unsuccessful bidders $1,500 for making his 
plans.” In that way we built the Beta , the second dredge, and that 
boat on its trial accomplished the astonishing feat of taking up and 
transporting to a distance of 1,000 feet 6,000 cubic yards of sand in 
an hour. I hesitate somewhat to make this statement, because I am 
speaking entirely from memory, and my memory of figures is very 
unreliable. But that is my recollection. At all events, it was some¬ 
thing phenomenal—something which had never been heard of before. 
It settled the question. It was then obvious that it Avas possible to 
make a dredge boat that would cut through a bar so quickly that the 
water could take possession of the cut and flow through it before it 
would begin to fill up; and that was the beginning of dredging on the 
Mississippi River. I slept far better for a good many nights after 
that. 

Senator Burton. When was the Beta built? 

Mr. Taylor. I am the worst man on dates there ever Avas in the 
world. 

30573°—H. Rep. 300. 63-2, pt 2-10 


142 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

Senator Burton. Do you remember, Col. Bixby? 

Col. Bixby. I do not remember; it was long before my day. 

Mr. Cooley. 1896 or 1897. 

Mr. Taylor. Mr. Cooley is a walking encyclopedia of facts, and 
he undoubtedly knows better than I do. 

Senator Burton. You stated you do not think any material in¬ 
crease in depth would be obtained by dredging. Are you sure that 
there will not be as much further advance in the make of dredges and 
the amount of material that they will be able to handle, and that 
they will accomplish just such astonishing results as the Beta did 
before ? 

Mr. Taylor. I think there might be. 

Senator Burton. Is there any limit to size? 

Mr. Taylor. There is a limit to draft, of course. A dredge boat 
used on a bar must be of such shallow draft that she can get on the 
bar and get through the river; but a dredge boat might be made 
twice as great as the Beta. 

Senator Burton. You would still have that problem of pools, with 
bars above? 

Mr. Taylor. Of course. 

Senator Burton. And the difficulty of handling that enormous 
mass of material? 

Mr. Taylor. Yes, sir; since that time we have built eight smaller 
dredges. As we built the Beta as an experiment, she was not very 
well designed for active work, although she has done a great deal of 
good work since and is still serviceable. The dredges we have now, 
the best ones, handle approximately 2,000 cubic yards per hour. 

The Chairman. Did we not import one of those dredges? 

Mr. Taylor. No, sir. 

Senator Gallinger. That was at Galveston. 

Mr. Taylor. I think there was one or more imported for use at 
Galveston. We have been improving these dredges all the time; 
the last one built has always been the best, and we expect to improve 
them still further. 

One of the members of the commission was abroad last year in 
attendance upon the navigation congress at St. Petersburg, and while 
abroad he was authorized to spend several months on the Continent 
in the study of the latest developments in suction dredges, and he 
brought with him a large mass of very valuable material, by the aid 
of which we are expecting to build another dredge which will be 
superior to an}^ we now have. 

The Chairman. What solidity is there to the sand on a bar ? 

Mr. Taylor. It varies. It depends largely on how long it has 
been there. Sometimes the bars are very hard, but the average bar 
is quite soft. In a few places on the river the bars contain a good 
bit of gravel, and they are quite hard. But such bars are not com¬ 
mon. There is one thought, Mr. Chairman, which I want to express 
in reference to the deepening of the rh T er by the building of revet¬ 
ments. I think the river itself teaches a lesson on that point from which 
we can get some sound deductions. The river in its lower branches 
has by nature a deep channel. There is no necessity for any improve¬ 
ment in depth, except at one or two localities, anywhere below Bed 
Biver. Now, in my opinion, that is to be attributed mainly to two 
causes. The first is the continuity of flow in the same path, and 
the second resisting power of the banks. I ought really .to reverse 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 143 


are fnrmwlh^T ^“f 13 ‘ , 1 ', 1 the lo "’ er reaches of the river the banks 
unner rencw y TL° S f S ° f fi ? er sediment than that deposited in the 
This ‘ ' ‘ This form a hard, tenacious soil which erodes slowly. 

J his greater permanence of the banks keeps the current flowing 
n the same path, and it cuts its channel deeper and deeper. 

Aow, by revetment we imitate to a certain extent that condition. 
We increase the relative resisting power of the bank, and in doing 
that give the river a chance to scour its bed and make itself a better 
channel So I look to revetment first for a reduction in the amount 
o bar-buildmg material which travels down the river: and second 
tor a greater perseverance of the river in the same line of flow from 
^eai to year. These two causes together will be sure to give us an 
improved channel. As to how much, I don’t know. I have no doubt 
it will be 14 feet with complete revetment of the caving bends. 

Senator Burton. Speaking of revetment in the earlier work of the 
commission, you limited the location to those two places where it 
had an immediate effect in the regime of the river and navigation ? 

Mr. Taylor. Yes, sir. 

Senator Burton. 4 his revetment at Bolivar was the first excep¬ 
tion ? r 

Mr. Taylor. Yes, sir; the first exception. 

Senator Burton. That was about 1888? 

Mr. Taylor. That was the date: but I was not right in saving 
what I did in answer to your question. The Bolivar revetment"was 
the first one put in to save a levee, but we had put in some at Hick¬ 
man and Columbus, in Kentucky, at an earlier date to save them 
from the attacks of the river. 

Senator Burton. Your method of selection is where it will save 
the levees? 


Mr. Taylor. Yes; to meet emergencies, where it will save the 
levee or prevent a cut-off. 

Senator Burton. You are speaking of some causes of the decadence 
of traffic; what are some of those ? 

Mr. Taylor. What I have said pretty nearly covers the subject. 
The old boats have worn out, and there is no possibility of the restora¬ 
tion of traffic on the Mississippi except by building new boats at a 
large outlay of capital. The people who would do that sort of thing 
are distrustful of the permanence of the channel and are afraid of 
the railroads. 

Senator Burton. The railway system is very different from what 
it was 40 years ago ? 

Mr. Taylor. Yes, sir: very. 

Senator Newlands. What is the possibility of restoring river trans¬ 
portation? It is practically dead now. 

Mr. Taylor. I know it is. I think it can be restored, but its restora¬ 
tion, in my opinion, requires two things: First, confidence on the 
part of the people; and, in the second place, some sort of protection 
against ruinous railroad competition. I think the present laws which 
allow the railroads to cut rates to any extent to meet water trans¬ 
portation are not right. I think there ought to be some limitation 
upon the right of railroads to cut rates as against water transpor¬ 
tation. 

Senator Burton. Speaking of that confidence. You say the Mis¬ 
sissippi Valley Transportation Co. was really doing more before the 
commission took up the work at all? 


144 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


Mr. Taylor. Yes, sir; I think it was. 

Senator Burton. I see no lack of confidence there. 

Mr. Taylor. It had embarked upon an enterprise- 

Senator Newlands. They had the railway competition at that 
time, didn’t they? 

Mr. Taylor. They took the river as it was. 

Senator Burton. The transportation company was building new 
barges and obtaining new tugs and had a very large number of them 
clear down to the beginning of this century, and they sold out one by 
one, and finally sold out all of them in 1904. 

Mr. Taylor. They may have sold out finally in 1904. I thought 
they had substantially quit before that. There is another thing to 
be said about it, and that is that the men who were behind that 
enterprise switched off and became interested in other lines of busi¬ 
ness that were much more profitable and they let the barges go. 
There was a great boom in St. Louis about that time in developing 
trust companies, and Mr. Haavstick became interested in them, and 
he could very well afford to let his barges go. 

Senator Burton. In regard to the railroad competition, what do 
you say to a statute which provides that when a railroad has lowered 
a rate on the line by rail in order to compete with river transporta¬ 
tion that it can not restore that rate unless the Interstate Commerce 
Commission approves and finds that the rate was not lowered merely 
to cut out the water transportation? 

Mr. Taylor. I think that would be wise. 

Senator Burton. Would you go so far as to give the commission 
authority to make the minimum rate? 

Senator Martin. If the long and short haul clause was absolute 
and did not have the exception, that would cure the trouble. The 
long and short haul clause is subject to exception. Now, wherever 
there is water competition, then they change the rate to suit them¬ 
selves, although for a shorter distance they will charge not half as 
much. 

Senator Burton. The Waterways Commission expresses the opin¬ 
ion that it had been carried further than it was originally intended. 

Senator Martin. If that clause of the law was free of that excep¬ 
tion and made absolute and unconditional, it would meet the diffi¬ 
culty of the situation. 

Senator Burton. That is a pretty big problem. Senator Martin. 

Senator Martin. It is a large problem. 

Mr. Taylor. I think it would encourage commerce if you would 
put in the law now a direction that the 10 feet be obtained below 
Cairo within two years. It would signify that the Government had 
taken a step forward which would go a long ways to gain the people’s 
confidence. 

Senator Burton. Is not the decrease in these grain shipments due 
to the fact that flour mills have been established along the route by 
which the grain goes, and that it is different right now from what 
it was then? 

Mr. Taylor. I think that may be so. 

Senator Burton. Is not this a pretty important factor in the situ¬ 
ation—the absolute lack of terminal facilities? 

Mr. Taylor. It is a very important factor, I think; highly im¬ 
portant. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


145 


Senator Newlands. Do you think if the improvement was made 
there to give 10 feet and was assured on the river, that the people 
themselves would establish these terminal facilities and build the 
steamers ? 

Mr. Taylor. I don’t know just how far that would go. That 
would very much encourage them to do it, but just how far they 
would go I do not know. The towns and cities along the river, I 
think, would be encouraged to build wharves and terminal facilities. 
Those are the parties that ought to build them; the cities and towns 
along the river ought to make their own terminal facilities. You 
could hardly expect the shipper to do it. 

Senator Stone. Do you know what the comparative difference 
would be of freight rates on the river and by rail ? 

Mr. Taylor. No, sir; I am not informed on that subject. 

Senator Stone. About the matter of making the provision so that 
the levees bordering on the river would be taken care of by the 
riparian owners—you expressed yourself several years ago before the 
Rivers and Harbors Committee on that? 

Mr. Taylor. If I understand your question, my answer would be 
this: We have long been looking forward to the time when the 
property owners would be able to take care of the levees there them¬ 
selves without any help from the Government. That time has come 
with respect to one large levee district. The upper Yazoo levee dis¬ 
trict has taken care of its own levees entirely for four years, and has 
expended, I think, in that way something over $2,000,000. There are 
other districts, especially some on the west side of the river and some 
in Louisiana, that may be able to do that within a very short time. In 
the last two or three years the levee authorities have very generally 
expressed the opinion that if we could take care of the banks and 
protect the levees against the encroachment of the river by caving, 
that they could take care of the levees. 

Senator Stone. Now, if this large appropriation is made that you 
ask, ought not the commission to begin insisting on that ? 

Mr. Taylor. I think we ought. 

Senator Stone. That the communities take charge of the levees ? 

Mr. Taylor. Yes, sir; I think so. 

Senator Bourne. Do you mean the construction or maintenance? 

Mr. Taylor. Both. We have always done that to the greatest ex¬ 
tent possible, and with few exceptions the people have responded, as 
we thought, to the extent of their ability. There are some instances 
where they did not, but in very few localities. 

Senator Stone. Would you deem it wise to insert a provision pro¬ 
hibiting the commission from using the money for levees ? 

Mr. Taylor. In this bill? 

Senator Stone. Yes. 

Mr. Taylor. Oh, no; I would not do that. Let me tell you 
about that. There are some places in- which the levees ought to be 
built higher, where the riparian owners are very feeble, and yet 
where the levees ought to be made higher, and some places where 
the levees ought to be extended where none have been built yet. 
Two of these places are at the foot of two great basins. One of 
these is the St. Francis, which begins a little way above Cairo 
and extends down to a little above Helena. The St. Francis River 


146 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

flows down that basin and empties into the Mississippi River a little 
above Helena. The foot of that basin has been left open in order to 
let the surplus water escape into the river, and it must always be left 
open; but the levees have not been extended down as near to the 
foot of that basin as they ought to be. There are a few miles of 
levee that ought to be built there in which the Government will have 
to assist. The citizens can help, but the Government will have to 
assist if it is to be done within any reasonable time. A similar con¬ 
dition exists at the foot of the Yazoo Basin. The Yazoo River for¬ 
merly emptied into the Mississippi at the foot of that basin, just a 
short distance above Vicksburg, but in the recent years the Govern¬ 
ment has diverted the Yazoo from its former course and carried it 
down in front of the city of Vicksburg. There is no reason now why 
the levees should not be carried down close to the city of Vicksburg, 
and it ought to be done; and there will have to be some help there. 
There is another contingency that might arise, Mr. Chairman, which 
would require the expenditure of a large amount of money on the 
levees below Red River. There is a provision in this bill that the 
commission shall examine and report upon the feasibility and desira¬ 
bility of divorcing the Red River from the Mississippi. That means 
building a dam across Old River, which connects Red River with the 
Mississippi, so that all the water of the Mississippi must go down 
between the banks to the Gulf. As it is now the Mississippi floods 
divide at Old River, and part of the discharge goes down the Atcha¬ 
falaya to the Gulf. There has been for many years a strong demand 
to close that mouth. It has been awaiting the completion of the lock 
at Plaquemine which lets the Red River commerce into the Missis¬ 
sippi at that point. Now, that lock has been completed, and the 
demand for the divorce of the Red River from the Mississippi has 
become active and urgent. That division ought to be made some 
time. Whether in the near future or not is a question. If it should 
be, it will produce a condition of things which will require a consid¬ 
erable increase in the height of the levees from there down to the Gulf. 

Senator Burton. This water, when the Mississippi is high, which 
flows through Old River and down the Atchafalaya, would flow 
directly down the Mississippi and raise the level of the water very 
much. 

Mr. Taylor. Yes, sir; that is what would happen. We know by 
experience that two or three times in a century, at long intervals, 
extraordinary floods do occur—floods like they had in Paris—that 
eclipse all former records for long periods of time. Now t , with the 
mouth of Old River closed by a dam and the levees remaining as they 
are now such a flood as that would inundate the whole lower country. 

Senator Burton. Can you state briefly the reason for closing that? 

Mr. Taylor. It is mainly to relieve the Atchafalaya Basin from 
Mississippi flood water, and so protect the lands in that basin, or, 
rather, make their protection and reclamation easier. 

Senator Stone. Leaving this out, can you give an estimate of how 
many miles we would fill out to build levees? 

Mr. Taylor. Of new levees, not more than 50 miles, I think. Some 
of the present levees are lacking in the necessary height and strength 
for entire safety. We have a standard—I do not know how interest¬ 
ing all of this is to you gentlemen—we have a standard height which 
the Mississippi River Commission has established, and which is re- 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 147 

garded as safe, and that is that the crown of the levee shall be 3 feet 
above the highest known water in that localit}*. I will explain that 
a little. The flood level or flood surface of the Mississippi Hiver is a 
very irregular line; it does not follow a defined and continuous slope. 

Senator Bourne. It depends on the topography of the country, 
does it not? 

Mr. Taylor. It is subject to a great many causes, and we have this 
method of keeping track of it: At every great flood there is an 
examination made of the river along the banks by men in skiffs, who 
drive nails in trees every mile or so at the water surface, and that 
gives us a record of the flood height at those particular points. Five 
miles below it may be quite different, and 5 miles above it may be 
quite different again, so that the top of the flood is a sort of undulat¬ 
ing line; and as the levee is built to a height of 3 feet above that 
watermark, it is 3 feet above the highest known water in that local¬ 
ity. There are some places in the levee that are below that height, 
and they must be brought up. How much the Government will have 
to help on that I do not know. 

Senator Burton. Of this 50 miles you would expect at least half 
to be paid by the locality, would you not ? 

Mr. Taylor. I should think so ; yes, sir. 

The Chairman. You will be here to-morrow, will you not, Judge 
Taylor ? 

Mr. Taylor. I will remain here, Mr. Chairman, if I can be of any 
service to the committee. 

Senator Bourne. What is the general process of local contribution 
in the way of cooperation? Do they bond their land? 

Mr. Taylor. It is done in this way: The local communities have 
organizations authorized by statute, and they raise money by taxa¬ 
tion. They issue bonds, too, and nearly all of the districts are bonded 
now for as much money as they can borrow. The work on the levees 
is parceled out by consultation between the United States district 
officer and the local levee officer. 

Senator Bourne. Under the direction of the United States district 
officer ? 

Mr. Taylor. We allot, for instance, say, $100,000 for the lower 
Yazoo district. The United States officer there knows that he has 
that amount to spend there. The local engineer of that district 
knows how much he can spend. They meet in consultation and go 
over the ground and agree that the United States officer shall take 
this much of the work and the local engineer the rest. It is all done 
to the approval of the United States district officer. 

Senator Bourne. The new land formed or reclaimed, does that 
go to the levee districts? 

Mr. Taylor. That goes to the riparian owners. 

Senator Burton. The State of Louisiana has a tax over the whole 

State, do they not? _ . 

Mr. Taylor. Yes, sir. There is a tax extending over the whole 
State to a certain amount. That is the only State in which there is 
anything of that kind. 

The Chairman. The committee will now stand adjourned until 10 
o’clock to-morrow morning. 

(Accordingly, at 4.40 p. m., the committee adjourned until to¬ 
morrow morning, Wednesday, March 2, 1910, at 10 o’clock.) 


Appendix D. 

[Hearings of 1910.] 

THE MISSOURI RIVER. 

Committee on Commerce, 

United States Senate, 

Washington, I). C ., March 0, 1910. 

The Committee on Commerce of the United States Senate met, 
pursuant to adjournment, at 10.30 a. m. 

Present: Senators Frye (chairman), Nelson, Gallinger, Penrose, 
Perkins, Bourne, Burton, Martin, Stone, and Simmons. 

The Chairman. The committee will please come to order. 

The Senator from Oregon wishes to ask Mr. Cooley a question, 
and the Chair hopes that in answering Mr. Cooley will be as brief as 
he possibly can. 

Senator Stone. Mr. Cooley does not seem to be here, Mr. Chair¬ 
man. 

The Chairman. Mr. Cullom, do you wish to say anything now 
about the Chicago matter? 

Senator Cullom. I do not want to discuss the subject at all except 
the provision relating to Illinois, and I would prefer to do that after 
the others are through. 

The Chairman. Suppose you do it now; it will relieve you from 
attending on the committee hereafter. 

Senator Cullom. If there is anybody else present who has any¬ 
thing to say, I would prefer that they make their statements first. 

Senator Stone. There is present this morning Mr. Fox, an engi¬ 
neer who has had a large experience on the Missouri River. He 
wants to return to-day, and I would like some time, as soon as it is 
convenient for the committee to hear him, to let him proceed. He 
can do so after Senator Cullom has made his statement. 

Senator Cullom. If he is here, let him go on right now. 

The Chairman. Very well. We may just as well take up the Mis¬ 
souri River one time as another. We already have some evidence 
in relation to it from gentlemen who have been before the committee. 

Senator Stone. Col. Bixby spoke something about it. 

The Chairman. So that we will hear the engineer now. 

Senator Stone. This is Mr. Fox, of Kansas City. 

Statement of S. Waters Fox. 

The Chairman. What is your name? 

Mr. Fox. S. Waters Fox. 

The Chairman. What is your business? 

148 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


149 


Mr. Fox. A civil engineer. 

The Chairman. Are you a Government engineer? 

Mr. Fox. No, sir. 

Senator Burton. Have you ever been in the employ of the Gov¬ 
ernment ? 


Mr. Fox. I was employed for 24J years on the Missouri River 
work. 

The Chairman. On Missouri River work? 


Mr. Fox. Yes, sir; I first entered the service, Mr. Chairman, in 
September, 1878, and for a ti e was engaged under (then) Maj. 
(now retired Brig. Gen.) Charles R. Suter, in designing some boats 
for him at the St. Louis office, and then I went on the lower Missis¬ 
sippi River in charge of a party to collect physical data of the stream 
from Cooks Point to Arkansas City. In the following May, 1879, I 
was sent on to the Missouri River in charge of a party to expend two 
appropriations, one at Glasgow and another at Cedar City, Mo. I 
was continuously in the employ of the Government in charge of 
works at various points on the Missouri River from that time until 
1903, when I resigned in order to go into civil life and engage in the 
practice of my profession as a civil engineer. 

The Chairman. The committee will hear what you have to say 
with reference to these items about the 'Missouri River. You have 
read them, have you not? 

Mr. Fox. Yes, sir. If you will pardon me, I want first to deliver 
a message which, as a representative of the Kansas City Commercial 
Club, I was asked to deliver to the committee by the president of 
the club, Judge W. T. Bland. Kansas City is now engaged in raising 
a million dollars for a boat line on the Missouri River, and I am 
assured in a way that enables me to assure you that that money will 
have been raised by the end of this month—the million dollars. 
Something like $450,000 of it had been subscribed when I left Kansas 
City on Friday last. And they have undertaken, in a way that in¬ 
sures success, to raise the balance of that money before the end of 
this month. There is absolutely no doubt but that the full amount 
will be subscribed and devoted to establishing a line of boats upon 
the Missouri River. 

The Chairman. Between what points? 

Mr. Fox. I think between Kansas City and St. Louis. Whether 
they will extend their operations above or below those points I do 


not know. 

It is possible that they may have an auxiliary plant that would 
run up the river as far as St. Joseph or Omaha, but I am not sure as 
to that. 

Senator Gallinger. What would be the character of the boats? 

Mr. Fox. That has not yet been determined, but it will be. The 
boats will be builded upon the lines that the most thorough investi¬ 
gation into the subject would seem to indicate as the best. 

Senator Gallinger. Do you know what the contemplated draft 


of the boats will be? 

Mr. Fox. They will probably arrange for a draft of 6 feet any¬ 
way. That wouid be the most obvious thing. 

Senator Gallinger. Will they be steamboats or barges? 

Mr. Fox. That I am not authorized to say. 


150 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

Senator Burton. Will you be good enough to repeat the last 
sentence? They will probably be what, did you say? 

Mr. Fox. They will probably be designed for a 6-foot draft. 
That means that they can be used on a 3-foot draft, of course, or 
that they can be used on any greater depth of water that was avail¬ 
able. 

In this connection I would like to call the attention of the com¬ 
mittee to the fact that in 1907 and 1908, when Kansas City had a 
small line of boats on the river engaged in commerce, they found it 
practicable to load to something like a 5-foot draft. Now, that is 
not the measure of what will be found feasible if Congress continue 
to neglect the Missouri River or do any thing short of permanent, 
comprehensive improvement of the river. In the period of five 
years, beginning in 1903, the Missouri River made a phenomenal 
flood record. The great flood of 1903 attained a height of 35 feet on 
the Kansas City gauge, or 8.8 feet higher than the disastrous flood 
of 1881; again in 1904 the river rose to a height of 25.2 feet, and in 
1908 a stage of 30.3 feet, or only 4.7 feet lower than the 1903 flood 
was attained. In point of duration the 1908 flood was phenomenal— 
it holds the record. Its effect, on that account, in cleaning or 
scouring out the channel of the river was even more marked than 
the combined effects of the two previous floods. As a result of 
these three floods in five years, we have greater navigable depth in 
the river than previously obtained or than we can reasonably expect 
to have in the future. The recurrence of great floods at such inter¬ 
vals is very unusual. With the single exception of the flood of 1844, 
the only flood of magnitude at all comparable in its effect upon the 
general conditions with that of 1903 was in 1881, above referred to. 

I bring this up because I think we can reasonably expect, in the 
ordinary course of events, that the channel will deteriorate to some¬ 
thing like its normal condition of depth at low water, which is about 
3 feet. That is, boats would find, instead of 5 feet or 6 feet on the 
crossings, something like 3 feet. Before the systematic improvement 
of first reach was undertaken by the commission in 1891 to 1906, 
there was only 30 inches of water in that stretch of river in the 
locality of the mouth of the Osage River, and while that was an 
exaggerated case it was a persistent one. And, generally speaking, 
there were but 3 feet available over the crossings in the Missouri 
River from Kansas City to the mouth. 

Now, I would like to impress upon the committee this idea, that 
if the development of the 6-foot channel way is to be undertaken in 
accordance with Maj. Schulz’s project, provision should be made 
promptly to follow up that work, as he recommends, with such work 
as will embrace the entire project for the ultimate channel of 12 feet. 
I regard this as imperative because it is necessary to insure, as far as 
can be, the permanency of the work involved in developing 6 feet 
in the crossings. Long study of the question of the improvement of 
the Missouri River has convinced me of the entire feasibility of get¬ 
ting ultimately at least 10 feet. 

The Chairman. From what point to what point? 

Mr. Fox. Kansas City to the mouth, and ultimately, if the work is 
extended as far north as Sioux City, possibly 12 feet from Kansas 
City to the mouth. That is to say, I believe that if the Missouri 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 151 

River were improved as far as Sioux City, we would certainly have 
(3 feet from Sioux City to Kansas City, and as much as 10 feet, and 
possibly 12 feet, from Kansas City to the mouth. 

Senator Gallinger. Now, excuse me, Mr. Fox. You said a moment 
ago that it was in contemplation to raise $1,000,000 to put a line of 
steamers on with a draft of 5 feet? 

Mr. Fox. Six feet. 

Senator Gallinger. If it is contemplated that those steamers 
should have a draft of only 6 feet, what is the need of a 12-foot 
channel ? 

Mr. Fox. I thought I made that clear. If we have 12 feet, it 
would enable boats to draw something like 11 feet, of which, perhaps, 
9 feet would be effective displacement due to the load. With a 
6-foot channel, there would be available only about 4 feet of effective 
displacement due to load. 

The Chairman. How is it above Sioux City? 

Mr. Fox. A 3-foot channel would probably permit of only 1.35 
feet of effective load displacement. That is to say, a given-unit 
barge could carry about three times as much on a 6-foot channel as 
would be practicable on a 3-foot channel, and six and two-thirds 
times as much on a 12-foot channel; and on a 12-foot channel the 
unit would carry about two and a quarter times as much as on a 
6-foot channel. That is, speaking in round numbers. 

The Chairman. How about Sioux City up to Benton—isn’t it 
Benton ? 

Mr. Fox. Fort Benton; yes, sir. That is susceptible of improve¬ 
ment, and I would say that it would be entirely feasible to get 4 feet 
up to Benton and maintain it. 

It is of great importance that we understand clearly what is in¬ 
volved when we talk of getting a 6-foot channel in Missouri River. 
I take it to mean that at all times, when navigation is not interfered 
with by ice, there shall be a continuous channel of reasonable align¬ 
ment in which no cross section exists where maximum depth of not 
less than 6 feet obtains for a navigable width. Now, that is very sig¬ 
nificant when applied to the Missouri River; it means a whole lot to 
maintain such conditions. In the earlier stages of the work, and 
until everything has been adjusted under the new regime of flow, 
there will be temporary engorgements, due to local, accidental causes, 
of the sediment or detritus which is in transit down the river, and 
during that period there will be less than 6 feet in the crossings, and 
even in the bends or pools as Avell. In the movement and disposition 
of the immense amount of material which is being continually pre¬ 
cipitated into the stream in its unimproved condition, there are all 
sorts of accidental causes which result in choking up channels, even 
to the extent of diverting the flow so as to form new channels. These 
obstructions are often only temporary and, when so, are character¬ 
ized by the pilots as lumps. The effect of improvement works 
would be, as time progressed, to make these features more and more 
ephemeral and of diminishing importance; but, meanwhile, if com¬ 
merce were actively engaged upon the river, it is more than probable 
it would be seriously hampered. 

Senator Bourne." How do you mean temporarily? Does the river 
itself take those out? 


152 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


Mr. Fox. Yes. They would not become stable. 

Senator Bourne. The river in time erodes them away ? 

Mr. Fox. Yes, sir; the confined flow of the improved river would 
take care of them. They would be, so to speak, only tramp bars. 

There has been a good deal said here about the material in transit 
in the Missouri River, and if you will permit me, I would like to 
say just a word about that. A comparison of the official maps shows 
that every year the Missouri River erodes about 13 acres per mile 
of its banks between Sioux City and its mouth, a channel distance of 
807 miles. If we assume a bank height of 40 feet, that is equivalent 
to a prism of earth a mile square and about 655 feet deep, or about 
687,000,000 cubic yards. Also, it is estimated that about 413,000,000 
cubic yards pass from the Missouri into the Mississippi River every 
year. This represents a prism a mile square and 400 feet deep. 
This supplements the bar-growing material in the stream below. It 
constitutes what is called the through transportation or the spoil of 
the Missouri Basin. The balance of the material which may have 
been in transit is left within the valley, forming new banks and bars, 
and, in time of overflow, in building up the general valley. It is 
true that the general elevation of the valley is slowly rising. 

One of the arguments advanced for the improvement of the 
Missouri River is that by a comprehensive improvement of it, say 
as far as Sioux City or on up to Carroll, the through transportation 
of sediment will be reduced, and that in so doing the bar-growing 
element in the Mississippi River will have been reduced, and there¬ 
fore the difficulty of improving the Mississippi River will have been 
lessened. 

Senator Bourne. What is the total acreage that is each year 
eroded on the Missouri River? 

Mr. Fox. It is about 10,490 acres in the 807 miles from its mouth 
to Sioux City. 

Senator Bourne. That is lost each year? 

Mr. Fox. Yes; from the mouth to Sioux City. 

Senator Burton. That is very interesting to me, Mr. Fox; I was 
not aware that anything like an estimate claimed to be exact had 
been made on that. Did you make that yourself? 

Mr. Fox. The statement previously given that the average an¬ 
nual erosion of the Missouri River is about 13 acres per mile of river 
vyas taken from a paper prepared by Mr. J. A. Ockerson and pub¬ 
lished by the American Society of Civil Engineers in their trans¬ 
actions for 1893, Volume XXVIII, pages 417 to 424. The author 
states: “The data for determining the amount of erosion on the 
Missouri River was derived from a comparison of the surveys of 
1879 and 1890.” The o,ther figures which I previously gave as to 
the volume of the average annual erosion on the river from Sioux 
City to the mouth were based upon Mr. Ockerson’s determination of 
the acreage in connection with my own estimate of the average 
height of banks in the same reach. This I took to be 40 feet instead 
of 36 feet, as used by Mr. Ockerson, believing it to be more nearly 
correct. 

.As you know, during the early history of the work on Missouri 
River by the General Government much time and money were de¬ 
voted to obtaining and analyzing data of the physics of its flow. 
The annual report of (then) Maj. (now retired Brig. Gen.) Charles 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 153 

R. Suter, for 1881, in which he diagnosed the ills of the river and 
prescribed treatment, was formulated upon that data. That report 
has been the basis of practically all the operations since then; the 
methods of carrying out the work were developed from that time 
very rapidly, as money was appropriated, until the devices became 
standardized in the present form of bank revetment and dike work. 

Senator Bourne. Does the river make any new land to compensate 
for this loss, the 10,000 acres annually ? 

Mr. Fox. Yes, sir. 

Senator Bourne. How much in the same stretch ? 

Mr. Fox. It would very nearly compensate. 

Senator Bourne. It compensates itself? 

Mr. Fox. Yes, sir. You see, out of all this material which we 
are here referring to, namely, the material eroded from the banks 
between Sioux City and the mouth and the through transportation, 
there is only a small percentage of the former that goes out of the 
river; the balance of it is used to restore and maintain the existing 
conditions. But there is a deterioration of channel that, if it were 
not for other corrective conditions, would continue and the river 
would get wider and shallower. 

Senator Bourne. Is the new-made land tillable ? 

Mr. Fox. Not immediately. 

Senator Bourne. But it ultimately becomes productive ? 

Mr. Fox. Yes, sir; it ultimately becomes so. It is very rich and 
fertile. 

Senator Bourne. So, in effect, it compensates itself? 

Mr. Fox. Yes, sir. 

Senator Burton. Does it do quite that? You say the acreage is 
the same, but there is more moved some years than others, and, of 
course, it is in entirely different places. 

Mr. Fox. There is a lot of land that is made unavailable for cul¬ 
tivable purposes, but the percentage of that land remains practically 
the same. 

Senator Burton. What percentage do you say goes into the Mis¬ 
sissippi River of the total erosion ? 

Mr. Fox. Four hundred and thirteen million cubic yards are esti¬ 
mated to go into the Mississippi River; there are 687,000,000 cubic 
yards precipitated into the Missouri River by erosion of its banks 
between Sioux City and the mouth. 

Senator Burton. Do you think the estimate as large as that, nearly 
five-eighths or so, that goes into the Mississippi River ? 

Mr. Fox. Yes, sir. The quantity that passes into the Mississippi 
happens to be nearly five-eighths of the quantity that is eroded from 
Sioux City to the mouth, but that should not be taken to mean that 
the latter is the only source of supply of the former. 

Senator Burton*. About five-eighths that is eroded goes into the 
Mississippi River? 

Mr. Fox. Yes; if qualified as just stated. 

Senator Perkins. These lands belong to private ownership? 

Mr. Fox. Almost entirely, if you eliminate railroad right of way 
and some urban tracts owned by corporations. 

Senator Bourne. I do not see how it compensates itself, if there 
are 600,000,000 cubic yards eroded away and 400,000,000 cubic yards 


154 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


go through to the mouth of the Mississippi River; if that is so, I do 
not see how you get your compensation. 

Mr. Fox. On that statement of the situation, of course, there 
would not be full compensation, but you should bear in mind that 
there is a lot of material contributed by erosion in the river above 
Sioux City, and also from uplands. And in overflows enormous 
quantities of material are left upon the main banks as well as low- 
lying lands, thus contributing toward compensation. In further 
illustration of the compensating influences that are in constant oper¬ 
ation, I might add: By far the greatest erosion occurs on the con¬ 
cave banks forming the bends in the river. This material does not 
travel far. Much of it is dropped in the first crossing below and 
under the point on the same side of the river at the foot of the 
bend. As the bank in the bend recedes the opposite shore advances 
in the form of a low-lying bar. The latter continues to advance 
until the point is reached where, by reason of the contraction of 
section, its face is swept by a current strong enough to carry away, 
as fast as contributed, the material brought in over its crest. At 
this juncture its farther advance is very sensitive to the recession of 
the opposite bank. As time progresses this bar is builded up by 
bed movement of material from above, until it gets above water. 
Then a growth of willows, by causing deposit from flow, carries 
on the process of upbuilding—provided it be not meanwhile carried 
away by channel shifting—to an elevation approaching the normal 
flood plane, where the willows are gradually replaced by growths 
of cottonwood. 

Senator Gallinger. And is not a good deal of this land that is 
eroded and carried into the stream worthless, so far as cultivation 
is concerned? 

Mr. Fox. That portion of it that is from caving bends is good 
land. 

Senator Burton. While you are here there are two or three ques¬ 
tions I would like to ask you. 

Mr. Fox. Very well, sir. 

Senator Burton. In the most elaborate plan for the improvements 
section, its face is swept by a current strong enough to carry away, 
miles would have to be furnished with spur dikes? 

Mr. Fox. If I were in charge of the river, I should limit that 
to a very small amount. I would use a minimum amount of spur- 
dike work. 

Senator Burton. About how many miles? 

Mr. Fox. I do not know. If I could get along without any of it. 
I would do so. I should resort to longitudinal dike work rather than 
spur-dike work. 

Senator Burton. You believe in longitudinal dike work? 

Mr. Fox. Yes, sir; in preference to spur dikes. 

Senator Burton. Has that plan been considered by the engineers ? 

Mr. Fox. Yes, sir. 

Senator Burton. And disapproved by them? 

Mr. Fox. The longitudinal dikes? No. Their use has been ap¬ 
proved. 

Senator Burton. About how many miles would you think—what 
would be your estimate ? 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 155 

Mr. Fox. Well, I have not gone into that recently to make a com¬ 
parison, but the estimate is based upon the equivalent of reveting one 
bank all the way from Kansas City to the mouth. 

Senator Burton. Do you think that is necessary ? 

Mr. Fox. Three hundred and ninety-one miles, I think that or the 
equivalent of that would be necessary. 

Senator Burton. That is, longitudinal dikes? 

Mr. Fox. Bevetment. 

Senator Burton. On one side or the other? 

Mr. Fox. Using longitudinal dikes where they are indicated and 
revetment work where it was indicated. 

Senator Burton. What do you say the distance is? One state¬ 
ment here is that it is 386 miles and another statement is that it is 
392 miles. 

Mr. Fox. It is 391 miles. 

Senator Burton. Maj. Schulz suggests two plans here, one cost¬ 
ing less than four million and the other costing twenty million. 
What do you say as to those two plans? You have examined them, 
have you not ? 

Mr. Fox. The first one, costing three and a half million dollars, 
contemplates treatment that shall be largely confined to crossings in 
the river, and is was projected mainly with the view of getting a 
6-foot channel way through those crossings, with only such addi¬ 
tional work as was needed to make that river stable. I think Maj. 
Schulz at that time contemplated, in fact he says in his report, that 
such work should be followed up as quickly as possible with work 
extending above and below, so as to give a practically continuous 
treatment from Kansas City to the mouth. 

Senator Burton. What is your idea—that the expenditure of that 
amount of money would secure 6 feet ? 

Mr. Fox. What amount of money ? 

Senator Burton. The three and a half millions or slightly in ex¬ 
cess of that. 

Mr. Fox. I think it would get 6 feet, but I do not believe it would 
secure it in the sense that it would be permanent, if nothing else 
were done. 

Senator Burton. It would get it in the first instance, but in order 
to maintain it it would require not only dredging, but further treat¬ 
ment of the river; is that your idea ? 

Mr. Fox. I did not say dredging. It would require an extension 
of the work contemplated under the 6-foot project, so that in effect 
it would be continuous from Kansas City to the mouth. 

The Chairman. Further deepening. 

Mr. Fox. By fixation of the river both above and below and be¬ 
tween those points. 

Senator Burton. Between what points? 

Mr. Fox. Between those points that are contemplated to be treated 
under the 6-foot project. 

Senator Burton. Well, in order to maintain this depth from 
Kansas City down, would work be necessary above Kansas City ? 

Mr. Fox. I think not. 

Senator Burton. That stretch would take care of itself? 

Mr. Fox. I think it would. 

Senator Burton. If elaborately treated? 


156 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


Mr. Fox. Yes, sir; it is long enough to take care of itself. Con¬ 
ditions there would be helped, however, if there were an extension 
of improvements from Kansas City upstream. 

Senator Burton. You have mentioned all that. 

Senator Stone. I should like to ask a question, if it will not inter¬ 
rupt you ? 

Senator Burton. Certainly. 

Senator Stone. I would like to ask whether in your opinion dredg¬ 
ing would be required on the Missouri River as a part of this 
scheme of improvement, and if so, to what an extent? 

Mr. Fox. It would not be required under any comprehensive 
project for the systematic improvement of the river, but might be 
advantageously used to a limited extent in special cases to facilitate 
or hasten results. 

Senator Gallinger. You have spoken with much positiveness 
about certain parties raising $1,000,000 to put a line of boats on the 
river. That, I assume, is contingent upon the improvement of the 
river by the General Government. 

Mr. Fox. They are going to put a line of boats on without regard 
to what Congress does. There is no contingent item in it whatever. 
That $1,000,000 will be raised and the boat line will be put upon the 
river independently of what is done here. Kansas City is in a posi¬ 
tion where it must be done. 

Senator Gallinger. Yes. Of course, I ask for information. 

Mr. Fox. Of course Kansas City is very anxious that Congress 
shall go ahead with the improvement of the river. That will facili¬ 
tate their purpose in navigating the river enormously; but I desire 
to emphasize the statement previously made, that without regard to 
what Congress shall do in the matter, Kansas City will put a line of 
boats on the river. 

Senator Bourne. The radius of operation of this proposed line 
of boats depends materially upon what aid the Federal Government 
gives, does it not; otherwise, I do not see the necessity of this im¬ 
provement if they can already operate—I mean from their stand¬ 
point. 

Mr. Fox. I thought I made myself clear on that point, in this 
way, that we have now a river which, as a result of late floods largely, 
affords a navigable depth in excess of what we may expect if the 
river is allowed to deteriorate, as it will if left to its devices, and 
when it gets down to the 3-foot basis, which I consider normal, be¬ 
tween the mouth and Kansas City, the effectiveness of any line of 
boats on the river will be reduced very materially. Of course, to 
whatever extent Congress shall improve the river, the effectiveness 
of the boat line will be increased. 

Senator Stone. How many months in the year would this boat line 
be able to operate boats ? 

Mr. Fox. About nine months, I think. 

Senator Stone. In its present condition ? 

Mr. Fox. About nine months. The river during the winter is 
closed from December on through February. 

Senator Stone. Are there not months when the river would be 
much lower than during other months? 

Mr. Fox. Oh, yes. After the subsidence of the June rise the river 
continues to drop back to the lower stage, until along in the fall; 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 157 

then we have usually a small increase in stage due to fall rains. The 
river then declines until the usual winter stage is reached. Naviga¬ 
tion is at its best for only about five months in a year. 

Senator Stone. During those low stages would boats run ? 

Mr. Fox. Of course they can run, but under restrictions imposed 
by a necessary reduction in effective load draft on account of reduced 
available depths in the river. 

Senator Gallinger. A while ago I asked you a question that you 
did not answer, as to the probable type of boats that this company 
proposes to build. Is it a barge? 

Mr. Fox. I think so; but as I have before stated, I am not au¬ 
thorized to say what type of boats will be adopted. If my advice were 
asked, I would recommend a unit consisting of a towboat and 16 barges, 
to be operated in this way: Each tow to consist of four barges, the 
other barges being left at terminals for loading and unloading, and 
in that way enable the power boats to be under way the major por¬ 
tion of the time. As an auxiliary to the towboat and barges, I would 
recommend the use of as many power carrier boats, or packets, as the 
development of the business indicated. 

Senator Perkins. What is the velocity of the current at this stage 
of the water, sir? 

Mr. Fox. It varies, Senator. I should say from 2 miles an hour 
up to 7 or 8. 

Senator Burton. It then takes some considerable power to stem 
the current? 

Mr. Fox. Yes. In times of flood it would be very difficult to make 
good progress in the face of the current, but the upstream boats can 
almost always find slack water during the flood stages. Of course, 
the current facilitates travel downstream. 

Senator Gallinger. In view of the fact that German waterways 
carry their traffic in barges that convey from 600 to 1,000 tons on a 
waterway of 5^ feet, is there really any apparent necessity for making 
this waterway deeper? 

Mr. Fox. One of the features of the Missouri River that would be 
a controlling element in determining the units which would be most 
useful on the Missouri River is the sinuosity and form of its channel. 
The curvature of many of the bends is so sharp that in going down¬ 
stream even packets have to flank them, and it is often necessary 
with tows to buckle as well as flank. For that reason the unit would 
be limited in size both as to length and width. 

Senator Gallinger. We have a provision in this bill which came 
from the Plouse providing for an experimental line of boats on the 
Missouri River, and I understand the gentleman who is promoting 
that and believes in it says that probably they will not be of greater 
draft than 4 or 5 feet. I simply want to get the facts clearer in my 
own mind as to the necessity for a greater depth than 6 feet. 

Senator Stone. Senator Gallinger asked you about the barges used 
in Germany. What are the distances the barges would travel on the 
Missouri River from Kansas City down as compared to the distances 
they travel in Germany? 

Mr. Fox. I am not familiar with the German commercial problem. 
The Missouri is navigable for a much greater distance than any river 
in Germany is. 

30573°—H. Rep. 300, 63-2, pt 2-11 


158 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI BIVEE. 

Senator Stone. Well, it would be much longer, as a rule, would 
it not? 

Mr. Fox. The travel on the Missouri River would be 391 miles 
from Kansas City to the mouth and an additional IT miles from the 
mouth to St, Louis. But I imagine that a condition will develop on 
the Missouri River in which there will be heavy local traffic from 
points between these two. As I understand it, the experience of the 
old boat line was that in going down the river they began to pick 
up east and south bound freight at a point somewhat east of Kansas 
City, and an increasing load of freight was taken on as they went 
downstream, so that the average haul on the downstream freight was 
considerably Jess than the distance from Kansas City to St. Louis. 

Senator Burton. The barge navigation has been tried on the 
river, has it ? 

Mr. Fox. To a small extent by the Hermann Packet Co., at Her¬ 
mann. Of course, there was also the transportation of construction 
material by the Government, involved in improvement operations, 
and that is just as good an illustration of the possibilities of naviga¬ 
tion as though it were commodities of commerce. 

Senator Burton. Has there ever been a barge line from Kansas 
City to St. Louis ? 

Mr. Fox. Not that I know of. 

Senator Burton. Are you familiar with the kind of navigation, 
or have you read or heard of it, that was in effect back in 1858? I 
noticed in the railway guide that there was a railroad that had a few 
trains that carried passengers to Jefferson City, but from Jefferson 
City to Kansas City they were sen by boat. Do you know what 
type of boats they were ? 

Mr. Fox. They were the side-wheel boats. 

Senator Burton. How much did they draw? 

Mr. Fox. I think about 3 feet. 

The Chairman. Is there anything further that you want to elicit 
from this gentleman? 

Senator Stone. Senator Bourne has suggested that you describe 
to the committee the kind of work you did on the river. 

Mr. Fox. The revetment work on the river was the result of 
a good deal of experimentation by the Government, and, finally re¬ 
sulted in what is known as the “ continuous woven-willow type.” It 
consisted of a mattress made of willows, woven in basket form into 
a continuous piece that was about 80 feet wide from the standard 
Jow-water contour of the bank and extended from end to end of 
the bank to be protected. This mattress was reinforced by a system 
of galvanized steel-wire strands and anchored to the bank by means 
of those wire strands to deadmen back of the top of the bank. The 
bank from standard low-water contour, or the inner edge of the 
mattress, as nearly as the stage of the water permitted, was graded 
to a slope that varied from two to three on one, or, even flatter in 
some localities, by means of an hydraulic jet. The mattress was sunk 
in contact with the bottom by means of riprap stone, and the upper 
bank, from the inner edge of the mattress to a contour about 2^ feet 
above standard high-water plane, was protected by means of a pave¬ 
ment of riprap stone. This pavement was covered over with spawls 
that would fill the interstices of the pavement. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 159 

Senator Martin. How long do those mattresses last? 

Mr. Fox. Indefinitely, if not outflanked by the river or torn by 
abrasion from ice. 

Senator Martin. Would not they rot out or decay ? 

Mr. Fox. No, sir; because, in the later constructions, when the 
revetment became standardized to the specifications I have just 
given the inner edge was kept down near the standard low-water 
contour, and that provided for all but a very narrow strip of the 
mattress being constantly under water; and all of it was under water 
for a long enough period to thoroughly leach out those acids that 
tend to decay the brush, so that in a short time the brush forming 
the mattress was robbed of its rotting qualities and was indefinitely 
preserved. 

Senator Martin. What length of time by actual experience have 
you observed those mattresses, and how long have they been con¬ 
structed—what length of time for observation have you had? 

Mr. Fox. Since 1879. 

Senator Martin. About 30 years? 

Mr. Fox. About 31 years; yes, sir. 

Senator Martin. And there is no indication of decay or decom¬ 
position at all in those 31 years? 

Mr. Fox. The standard construction of which I speak was not 
adopted until some time after that, but of the earlier structures which 
were put under water, we have a good many examples which prove 
that brush mattresses below a constantly wet horizon do not decay. 

Senator Martin. Some of the parts are under water and some are 
not? 

Mr. Fox. Those parts of mattresses that in the early constructions 
were well above midstage rotted out sooner or later; more quickly if 
the brush had been cut during the period of active growth than when 
cut late in the fall or winter. 

Senator Martin. What was the result to the balance—did it not 
give way? 

Mr. Fox. In the earliest constructions, yes. But later on the 
anchorage held the lower work in place, and the danger was confined 
to the upper bank work. 

Senator Martin. Do you not have to renew the part of it that rots 
out for the protection of the part that is under water? 

Mr. Fox. In the later construction, when revetment became stand¬ 
ardized, the specifications were such that no part of the work was of 
a perishable character. It was all of a permanent character, with 
stone on the upper bank and brush on the subbank. 

Senator Martin. So that as now constructed you would consider 
them imperishable? 

Mr. Fox. I would consider it practically so; as much so as any 
work of man is. 

Senator Martin. As much so as stone or iron ? 

Mr. Fox. It is made of stone where exposed. 

Senator Martin. I thought it was made of brush. 

Mr. Fox. The brush is under the water. And there it is not perish¬ 
able. We have taken out of the river pieces of wood from hulls and 
trunks of trees that must have been there a great many years. I 
remember in excavating for a new mouth of the Osage River we 


160 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


found in the bottom of the cut, which was below the line of perma¬ 
nent saturation, black walnut trees over which there were growing 
white oak trees that must have been 600 years old. Those trees were 
in a perfect state of preservation; they were absolutely sound. 

Senator Martin. And you are satisfied that the revetment as now 
constructed is practically imperishable? 

Mr. Fox. So far as the deterioration from mere age is concerned. 
If you stop short of carrying these revetments to a point of perma¬ 
nency you are liable to lose them from an outflanking movement of 
the river; and there is where much of the percentage of maintenance 
shown in the reports comes from. As a matter of fact, at the time 
the Missouri River Commission was abolished in 1902, an examina¬ 
tion was made of the work in First Reaches, and the deterioration of 
the revetment there was found to be less than 1 per cent, although 
the construction of those revetments began in 1891 and progressed 
along until 1896. The dike work, which is essentially of a tempo¬ 
rary character, showed a deterioration of about 6 per cent. 

Now, these works are of such a character, and the Missouri River 
of such a character, that the necessity for maintenance develops early 
in the life of them. It is in that period when they are exposed to the 
most violent attacks of the river. After they have been in—as they 
grow older, the river becomes used to their presence, or has been 
trained by them so that they are not subjected under ordinary condi¬ 
tions to anything like the attacks that they are in their earlier stages, 
and it is before this time that the repairs should be most promptly 
and carefully made. I have seen thousands of dollars worth of 
work destroyed because we were unable to make repairs as the neces¬ 
sity for them developed. Oftentimes an expenditure of $100 op¬ 
portunely made would have saved work that cost thousands of dollars 
to build. If the repairs are kept up in the early life of the work, 
and more particularly in the case of the revetments, it becomes sta- 
bilitated, so that it practically takes care of itself. The first flood 
is a very critical time for a revetment—probably the most critical 
time in its life. The flood searches out, as no inspector can, the weak 
points in the revetment and develops them. Then, after the sub¬ 
sidence, or during it, as may be necessary, if you are there promptly 
and will take the stitch in time, you not only save nine but possibly 
many multiples of nine. 

The Chairman. Has not the committee heard enough about revet¬ 
ments to understand it? 

Senator Bourne. I would like to know the estimated cost of revet¬ 
ment work on the Mississippi River as compared with the Missouri 
River. 

Mr. Fox. It is about 10 to 35. 

Senator Stone. Did you construct that work there from Jefferson 
City down ? 

Mr. Fox. A large part of it. For some years prior to leaving the 
service I was in charge of the river from Sioux City to the mouth. 

The witness was thereupon excused. 

Senator Stone. There is just one more witness from Kansas City 
who would like to be heard for a few minutes. He is Mr. Wilson, who 
is the traffic commissioner for the Commerce Club of Kansas City, 
which is the dominating commercial body of that town. 

The Chairman. The committee will hear Mr. Wilson. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 161 

Statement of H. G. Wilson. 

The Chairman. What is your business? 

Mr. Wilson. I am commissioner of the transportation bureau of 
the commercial club. 

The Chairman. Located where ? 

Mr. Wilson. Kansas City. I have charge of the transportation 
and commercial interests of the different commercial interests of the 
city, and the commercial club has a membership of something over 
3.500 individuals. 

Senator Stone. How long have you been connected with that 
work ? 

Mr. Wilson. I have been connected with that work in Kansas City 
since June, 1906. 

Senator Stone. What had you been doing previously? 

Mr. Wilson. Prior to that time for 10 years I was connected in an 
official capacity w 7 ith the freight traffic department of the Kansas 
City, Fort Scott & Memphis Railroad, and its successor, the St. 
Louis & San Francisco Railroad Co., and during that time, during 
the last four years of that period, I had charge exclusively of the 
foreign freight traffic—that is, the export and import traffic—and 
as such I became familiar with water-borne commerce, as well as 
with rail-carried commerce. 

During the year 1908, in addition to my other duties as commis¬ 
sioner of the transportation bureau, I managed and operated the last 
steamboat line that was operated on the Missouri River between 
Kansas City and St. Louis. 

I want to speak on this subject with reference to the commercial 
conditions, the commerce that might be carried on the river, if im¬ 
proved, and the commerce that would be affected in the way of 
freight-rate adjustment by an effective waterway transportation on 
the Missouri River. To do this it is necessary to explain to you— 
and I will be as brief as possible—something of the influence on the 
traffic destined to points west of the Missouri River and originating 
in that territory, and the traffic produced at and originating in points 
east of the Mississippi River. One is the great bread-basket terri¬ 
tory of the country; the other is the great consuming territory of 
these products, and the territory which produces largely the manu¬ 
factured articles that are used in the West. 

The city of Kansas City—and I shall mention that more, per¬ 
haps, than other cities—is in the same relation to that territory and 
the rate adjustments as other Missouri River cities from Omaha 
and Sioux City to Kansas City, and particularly what are termed 
in rate traffic parlance as the lower Missouri River, or southwestern 
Missouri River points, the cities of Kansas City, Atchison, Leaven¬ 
worth, and St. Joseph. The communities at the southwestern Mis¬ 
souri River points are not manufacturing centers, and to an extent 
they are jobbing centers. They assemble in large quantities the 
goods that are produced at points on and east of the Mississippi 
River and north of the Ohio River, and distribute in smaller quan¬ 
tities to territories west, northwest, and southwest of the Missouri 
River, and particularly of Kansas City. 

The freight rates from the territory known as k seaboard ter¬ 
ritory, the trunk-line territory, which is that part of the eastern 


162 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


territory I have described, lying east of Pittsburgh and Buffalo, to 
the Missouri River points, are made on a combination of locals 
through the Mississippi River, locals from seaboard territory to St. 
Louis, if you please, and local from St. Louis to Kansas City. But 
the rates to points immediately west thereof are all made by still 
adding the additional local from Kansas City to points west, like 
Salina, Kans., and Denver, Colo. That is true to points northwest 
to a degree except that out in the Dakotas and in the extreme North¬ 
west the rates from the seaboard territory are made on combina¬ 
tions through St. Paul, the rates through St. Paul being less than 
the rates through Kansas City as a result of the fact that the rates 
from seaboard territory to St. Paul are less than the rates from sea¬ 
board territory to Kansas City, a result of water influence, the Soo 
Canal, and the Duluth gateway. The rates to southern Kansas 
points and northern Oklahoma from seaboard territory are made 
on the St. Louis combination, but the rate from St, Louis to south¬ 
ern Kansas and Oklahoma is not the Kansas City combination, but 
a percentage of it—less than 100 per cent of the two rates in each 
case. To illustrate: The rate from St. Louis to Kansas City on 
first-class articles is 60 cents, and from Kansas City to Wichita 
the first-class rate is 66 cents, a combination of $1.32, yet the rate 
from St. Louis to Wichita is $1.19J. 

Senator Burton. $1.26. 

Mr. Wilson. I should say $1.26. 

In other words, the St. Louis-Wichita rate is 95 per cent of the St. 
Louis-Kansas City-Wichita combination. The rates to Texas points— 
I should say first that with the rate from St. Louis to all this terri¬ 
tory fixed, the rates from Chicago are fixed on a differential basis 
higher than the rates from St. Louis. 

Now, the rates from seaboard territory to Texas points are made 
25 cents first class higher than the rates from Chicago to Texas 
points, using the combination of local rates from seaboard to Texas 
points as a maximum. So that you will see that the rate from the 
Mississippi River to the Missouri River, or between the two rivers, 
is the pivotal factor on which all of the rates of freight from all of 
the territory east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio practically 
to all territory west of the Missouri and southwest of the Missouri, 
including the intermountain country, but not including the Pacific 
coast country, is based. The rates are either based on the rate be¬ 
tween the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers or the rates are made 
with some relation thereto. So that any change made in the rates 
across the State of Missouri would have its influence on the general 
adjustment of rates to and from the territories both east of the Mis¬ 
sissippi and west of the Missouri. And what I say with reference to 
this adjustment westbound applies in general with respect to the 
rates from the West to the East, except that the conditions—traffic, 
I should say—are most sensitive as to rate adjustment or differences 
in rates. You will all understand that the raw material, the product 
of the farm or the field, is more susceptible to the influence of a 
freight rate, and where a slight change in the rate on dry goods would 
not affect dry goods a very fractional change on the rate on grain 
would affect grain, its values, the destinations to which it could be 
sent, the values which the producer would receive. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


163 


So, without undertaking to elaborate any more on that rate situa¬ 
tion, you will see the influence of the rates between the Mississippi 
and the Missouri Rivers. 

Now, the purpose of Kansas City particularly interesting itself 
in the establishment of a boat line is brought about by a combination 
of conditions, the result of the accumulation of troubles of several 
years’ standing. The rates to the southwest of us are so much less 
and grow so much less as a through rate than the combinations 
through Kansas City that it is becoming, it is fast becoming, an im¬ 
possibility for our jobbers to assemble these goods and retain the 
trade in the southwestern territories, which they have heretofore had 
and on which largely Kansas City lives. We live on the territory 
immediately west and southwest of us, taking a radius from Denver 
and circling down as far as to the Texas Gulf coast. Now, then, if 
the merchants in that territory are enabled to get their goods from 
the producer at a less freight cost than we can assemble those goods 
and deliver them, we have to do one of two things—either absorb 
the difference in the freight cost or retire from that business. In 
some lines of goods we can make the absorption; in other lines of 
goods we have to retire, and our merchants have retired from that 
business largely in this way, that, not being satisfied to lose that 
business, they have established, by force of necessity, branch distrib¬ 
uting houses. One grocery house in our city, particularly, maintains 
14 branch houses throughout the Southwest. Two of those branch 
houses do a larger amount of business than the parent house at Kan¬ 
sas City. That same condition is true of other grocery jobbers; it is 
true of hardware jobbers; and it is true in the case of one boot and 
shoe house; and it is true in the case of two of our dry goods inter¬ 
ests. Viewing this pinnacle of high freight rates, the Kansas City 
merchant feels that it is necessary to reinstate or revive the competi¬ 
tion, there being no effective competition between rail carriers, which 
has heretofore assured low or reasonable freights. Therefore they 
are organizing this boat line with the idea of establishing this com¬ 
petition, carrying an amount of tonnage that will benefit them on a 
profitable basis and establishing a competition which is wanting and 
which they hope will have its influence on the rail lines by inducing 
them to reduce their freight cost. 

Senator Gallinger. How do your freight rates compare with, say, 
5 or 10 years ago? They are much less, are they not? 

Mr. Wilson. Our freight rates to-day are 40 per cent higher than 
they were prior to January, 1906. 

Senator Gallinger. Forty per cent higher? . 

Mr Wilson. Yes; they are 40 per cent higher. I am speaking, 
Senator, of the freight rate actually paid by the merchant and not the 
paper rate, which is the same to-day as it was at that period. 

Senator Burton. What explains the difference? 

Mr. Wilson. The effective administration of the interstate-com¬ 


merce act. „ 

Senator Burton. That is, there are no more freight lebates. 

Mr. Wilson. There are no freight rebates; no, sir. Rebates were 
paid by the railroads and accepted by the merchants. Whyf to 
equalize these maladjustments of freight rates. 

Senator Nelson. Hasn’t there been some increase through a change 
of the classification of freight? 


164 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

Mr. Wilson. There is always a change going on in the classifi¬ 
cation. 

Senator Nelson. That increases the rate? 

Mr. Wilson. Unfortunately, yes; the classification changes which 
have been made since August, 1906, have generally been in the nature 
of advances. A very large number of articles which were previously 
provided with what we term commodity rates—special rates taking 
them out of the classification—have been restored to the classification 
and to the classification to which they previously belonged, and that 
resulted in an advance of the rate. 

Senator Gallinger. I asked the question for the reason that it is 
generally understood in our part of the country—in the East—that 
freight rates have been very generally reduced of late years, and I 
am astounded to learn you are suffering under a burden such as you 
have mentioned. 

Senator Burton. The rate as published would not have resulted 
in any such difference? 

Mr. Wilson. Practically none, so far as class rates are concerned. 
The rates as published on commodities now and as applied on com¬ 
modities 15 years ago would show a considerable advance on a large 
percentage of those commodities. 

Senator Burton. That is due to the difference in the classification? 

Mr. Wilson. That is due to the fact- 

Senator Nelson. What do you understand by commodity rates ? 

Mr. Wilson. A commodity rate- 

Senator Nelson. By commodity goods, I mean? 

Mr. Wilson. There is no fixed rule. Any article may at any time 
be taken out of the classification and provided with a commodity 
rate. There is no prohibition. 

Senator Nelson. Do you call a rate on coal or lumber or grain a 
commodity rate? 

Mr. Wilson. Yes, sir; those articles are among the articles which 
are almost invariably provided with commodity rates. As an illus¬ 
tration : In our western classification lumber, coal, and grain, in car¬ 
load quantities^ are not provided with ratings in the classification. 
They are mentioned, but they always refer to the commodity tariffs. 
That is not true in the Central Freight and Trunk Line Association 
tariffs, because they have a larger number of classes and they pro¬ 
vide class rates for those articles in addition to applying the com¬ 
modity. 

Senator Nelson. That is true between the seaboard and the Mis¬ 
sissippi River? 

Mr. Wilson. Yes, sir; that is true between the seaboard and the 
Mississippi River. 

Senator Simmons. Did you say this increase in the rate was the 
result of the abolishing of rebates? 

Mr. Wilson. In effect, yes, sir; I said it was as a result of the 
effective administration of the interstate-commerce act. 

Senator Simmons. Everybody was not enjoying these rebates. 

Mr. Wilson. No, sir. 

Senator Simmons. Now, what would be the effect in the actual 
amount of freight paid to the man who was not getting the rebate? 

Mr. Wilson. He is probably paying either the same or a greater 
rate in the western country; west of the Mississippi River. 



FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 165 

Senator Simmons. Why is he paying a greater rate if he did not 
get any benefit from the rebates before ? 

Mr. Wilson. If he was a merchant who shipped an article provided 
with a commodity rate which has subsequently been restored to the 
classification, he is paying now the classification rates instead of the 
lower commodity rate. 

Senator Simmons. And the increase, as to him, has been the result 
of the classification? 

Mr. Wilson. As to him in that case largely. 

Senator Nelson. Then there has been another change. In addi¬ 
tion to the changing their commodity to classification rates they 
have also increased rates by changing goods from a low classification 
to a higher classification. 'There has been a good deal of that, hasn’t 
there? 

Mr. Wilson. Yes, sir; there has been a good deal of that. As 
an illustration, at the meeting of the western classification commit¬ 
tee, in Charlevoix, Mich., in July, there were applications for some 
543 changes in the ratings, classification. Perhaps 500 of them were 
applications for reductions. There were three definite actions taken 
by the classification committee. 

Senator Nelson. What were they? 

Mr. Wilson. And each one of those three were advances in rates 
by taking commodities out of commodity lists and restoring them to 
classified. 

The Chairman. Well, now, what about the Missouri River ? How 
is that going to help you out ? What do you want done about that ? 

Mr. Wilson. As far as the commercial situation is concerned, a 
transportation line operated on the Missouri River, a water carrier 
being effective, having sufficient capacity to carry—and, in fact, 
carrying—a sufficient quantity of tonnage to make that tonnage no¬ 
ticeable to the rail carriers, will exert an influence on the rates of 
the rail lines, forcing them to meet the competition so established, 
which will result in a lowering of the freight rates not only to and 
from Kansas City and the other southwestern Missouri River points, 
but to and from all of the trade territory in the Southwest—Kansas, 
Oklahoma, Texas, Denver, Colo., New Mexico, Arizona, and Ne¬ 
braska. All of this territory, all of these States, will be benefited 
by a reduction in the freight rates. 

Senator Perkins. Is it not a fact that the railroad companies 
generally agree with the steamboat companies on the rivers and allow 
them a certain differential ? That they agree upon a traffic arrange¬ 
ment, so that the producer and consumer will derive no material 
benefit from it? 

Mr. Wilson. That is true, I think, where the water lines are not 
controlled individually; where they are railroad controlled. By in¬ 
dividually, I mean investments in water-transportation lines by indi¬ 
viduals who have no other interest except that of transportation, 
whose purpose it is to keep the rates up in order to get the maximum 
of revenue by their line, which is also the aim of the rail line. 

Senator Burton. This proposed company is to have the capital 
furnished by shippers, the shippers to agree to ship their freight by 
that line anS not divert it to the railways? 

Mr. Wilson. Yes, sir. The organization of this company con¬ 
templates the subscription of stock by the shippers, the merchants. 


166 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

and manufacturers of Kansas City, as well as the citizens. Its in¬ 
corporation is so protected by its directors and stock ownership that 
control can not be lost from the Kansas City interest. It can not be 
controlled by any outside interest. 

Senator Perkins. But they can only transport a small percentage 
of the products of the country tributary to their line ? 

Mr. Wilson. It would be a small percentage of all the products of 
the country; yes, sir. But as to the products of the West and South¬ 
west, we feel that we will be able to transport at least 10 per cent of 
the volume of traffic moved from the Mississippi River to the Missouri 
River, and in the reverse direction, that is destined west and southwest 
of the Missouri River, and also originates in that territory and has 
destination at points- 

Senator Burton. You assume, then, that the railroad company 
would carry the other 90 per cent at the same rate as transportation 
by the river? 

Mr. Wilson. No; I do not. I never expect to see the day when 
the rail lines will make the same rates via the rail lines as will be 
made via the boat lines, even though the percentage of tonnage car¬ 
ried by the boat lines should reach 25 or a greater percentage of the 
total. But there is this about it—I would like to say, if you please—• 
there is a percentage, and it is susceptible to determination, that in¬ 
fluences, although it may be a small percentage, that influences the 
rate adjustment on 100 per cent of the traffic. I believe that with 
the actual carrying of 10 per cent of the tonnage to and from Kan¬ 
sas City or to and from the Missouri River, destined to and from the 
territory southwest that I speak of, that an influence can and will 
be exerted on 100 per cent of the traffic carried into that territory, 
whether that traffic moves via boats to Kansas City or from Kansas 
City, or whether it moves via rail and water, or moves via the Mis¬ 
souri River at all. In other words, there are now approximately 
5,000,000 tons of traffic originating at points in the central freight 
association and trunk-line territory finding destination at Missouri 
River points, and at points in the Southwest, a large proportion of 
which actually moves through the Mississippi River and the Mis¬ 
souri River. There is a part of that tonnage which reaches its desti¬ 
nation without touching the Missouri River. For instance, traffic 
to Oklahoma, southern Kansas points, and to Texas points, moving 
from St. Louis, having originated in the East, via the direct lines, 
via the Frisco, the M. K. T., the Cotton Belt, the Iron Mountain, 
and such lines. There is another large volume of traffic moving 
from the trunk line territory via water lines and the Virginia ports, 
thence via the rail lines to the Mississippi River, and thence direct 
lines to the Southwest, or through Memphis or Atlanta or Shreve¬ 
port, also through Alexandria and Texarkana ; also by the Atlantic 
steamship lines around by New Orleans and Galveston and north via 
the rail lines, and none of which actually moves from the Mississippi 
River, but all of which is affected by the rate adjustment between 
the Missouri and the Mississippi Rivers. 

Senator Burton. So, as a question of transportation contemplated, 
you believe it would be profitable to take any freight from an eastern 
point bound to a western point beyond Kansas City, removing it 
from the train at East St. Louis, carrying it on around Kansas City, 
and then loading it onto another train ? 



FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 167 

Mr. Wilson. I understand. 

Senator Burton. They are not independent blit artificial freight 
rates—would that be profitable? 

Mr. Wilson. I understand. Speaking of certain classes of traffic, 
I would answer yes to that question; and, Senator- 

Senator Burton. What classes? 

Mr. Wilson. And that would be on the high-class traffic. 

Senator Burton. Now, suppose you were shipping from New York 
to Washington by rail. Would it be worth while to take the freight 
off at Wilmington, ship it to Philadelphia, and then put it on the 
train again? 

Mr. Wilson. I would say no. 

Senator Burton. Do you know of any instance in the country 
where for a comparatively short trip like this it is taken off the boat 
and put on the train again? 

Mr. Wilson. No, sir; I would say I do not, except under artificial 
conditions and arbitrary conditions. 

Senator Burton. Really, what you are aiming at is to gain a reduc¬ 
tion in freight rates by railroad, with the thought that the freight will 
still go by rail. 

Mr. Wilson. No, Senator, I want to make it clear just exactly what 
we are trying to do. I am very closely allied with this company. 
Questions were asked Mr. Fox this morning that he did not feel that 
he had a right to answer. I have no hesitancy in saying what we 
hope to do about this. There is no secret about it, although we haven’t 
made much talk on this subject previously. Our intentions with re¬ 
spect to the new water-transportation line on the Missouri River are 
not to confine its operations between St. Louis and Kansas City. We 
realize, as well as anyone can and as clearly as anyone can, the ab¬ 
surdity of short hauling this transportation, this traffic that originates 
at so much greater distances. There would not be a sufficient saving 
either in the time or in the freight cost to justify doing that. Our 
purpose is to branch out as rapidly as we can, to extend the opera¬ 
tions of this line between Kansas City and New Orleans, between 
Kansas City and Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, between Kansas City and 
up the Illinois River at least as far as Peoria, and on the upper re¬ 
gions of the Mississippi River as far as that is possible. However, 
at the inception of this movement we probably will do what we did 
at the inception of the boat line which I did handle. The short haul 
on that traffic was the rail haul, although the traffic originated at 
seaboard territory and in the trunk-line territory; it was water-borne 
transportation, by rail from Chicago to East St. Louis and then by 
water from East St. Louis to Kansas City. So it was the railroads 
that were short hauled in that traffic, and the saving was considerable 
in that in the first cost. That little line made a basis of rates of 66| 
per cent of the rail rates westbound. Their eastbound rates were not 
on that basis, because it was an entirely different class of traffic, and 
they did not expect to and did not get very much of it. 

Senator Burton. Of course, there is this argument in that connec¬ 
tion : From St. Louis to New Orleans that traffic has fallen off so as to 
amount to practically nothing. 

Mr. Wilson. But the influence is there on the rate, Senator-- 

Senator Burton. Let me just state my question. Eight feet far¬ 
ther down? Now, what ground is there for expectation that, if the 


168 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

traffic does not develop from St. Louis to New Orleans with 8 feet 
part of the way and 9 feet the rest, the traffic would develop from 
Kansas City down? That is 400 miles and more beyond St. Louis, 
with only 6 feet. 

Mr. Wilson. Well, I don’t want to be misinterpreted as making 
a short answer, but my answer would be that that is St. Louis’s busi¬ 
ness. We feel that there is this necessity for finding some means to 
transport water freight at less freight cost than we are now encounter¬ 
ing. We will use the Mississippi River. We would be delighted to 
have 8 feet right now between Kansas City and Cairo. We are going 
to start this line, not believing that the equipment we will put on 
at the present time will be that which we will have ultimately in 
the end of an improvement period on the Missouri River, but it 
will serve its purpose wffiile the river is being improved. In other 
words, we have come to the point where we are waiting for the Fed¬ 
eral Government to improve this river. 

Senator Burton. You are placed at a great disadvantage in this 
territory tributary to the west and southwest because of the more 
favorable rates ? 

Mr. Wilson. And we want to make this point very clear to you. 
That while this boat line will benefit Kansas City and the south¬ 
western Missouri River points to which it will ply, its effect—its 
beneficial effect—will also be felt very greatly by the communities to 
the south and west of us, whose rates will be affected presumably in 
the same degree as ours. 

Senator Burton. To what extent is Kansas City a point for the 
rehandling of grain? 

Mr. Wilson. Kansas City is a second primary grain market of 
the United States. 

Senator Burton. And what is the first? 

Mr. Wilson. Chicago. 

Senator Nelson. Oh, no; not Chicago. 

Mr. Wilson. I beg your pardon, Senator. No; I suppose Min¬ 
neapolis and St. Paul. 

Senator Nelson. Minneapolis and St. Paul. 

Mr. Wilson. As a primary grain market. 

Senator Burton. And as regards the amount unloaded from cars 
there and placed in elevators, how much? 

Mr. Wilson. We have an elevator capacity of 10,000,000 bushels 
at Kansas City. We ship approximately 50,000,000 bushels of grain 
annually. We receive considerable in excess of that, because we 
have quite a large flour production. We were until last year, when 
Buffalo went ahead of us, the second milling center—the second flour¬ 
milling center. 

Senator Nelson. You must have been third. Minneapolis is the 
biggest milling center. 

Mr. Wilson. I admit that Minneapolis is the biggest milling 
center. Kansas City was second until Buffalo came in last year, 
and Kansas City is noAv third, unfortunately, but we have a pro¬ 
duction—that is, we have a milling capacity of 12,500 bushels per 
day. 

Senator Burton. How much grain is shipped from elevators in 
Kansas City a year? 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


169 


Mr. Wilson. About 50,000,000 bushels. 

Senator Burton. Where does that go mostly; to Galveston? 

Mr. Wilson. It goes very largely for export. It finds its way out 
through all of the ports; through Galveston, through New Orleans, 
and all the Atlantic seaboard points. 

Senator Burton. What is the comparative rate from Galveston 
and New Orleans? 

Mr. Wilson. They are the same, 18J cents on wheat and 17| cents 
on corn. They average about 4J cents less than the rates to Atlantic 
seaboard points. That is an average to all points. 

Senator Nelson. That is a great disproportion between wheat and 
corn, it seems to me. 

Mr. Wilson. One cent; 18J on wheat and 17^ on corn. There is 
just a cent difference on all that western country, on all traffic, on 
wheat and corn, except that moving to the Texas points. There is 3 
cents difference there. The wheat rates also apply on flour out in 
that territory, and the corn rates on other coarse grain and mill feed 
and other products of that kind. 

The Chairman. Is there anything further from this witness? 

Senator Stone. I want to ask you one question about the little 
line, consisting, I think, of two boats, that the Kansas City people 
put on two or three years ago. 

Mr. Wilson. That was the Kansas City Transportation & Steam¬ 
ship Co. It was organized in the fall of 1906. At that time they 
chartered one small steamer and barge, the Lora, and made a sort of 
demonstration trip, loaded, from St. Louis to Kansas City, to demon¬ 
strate the fact that the Missouri River was a navigable stream. That 
resulted during that winter and the following spring in the purchase 
of two boats, the steamers Chester and Tennessee. They were op¬ 
erated during the seasons of 1907 and 1908. During 1908 I operated 
them myself. I should say the company was composed of the mer¬ 
chants of Kansas City. It was a company of small capitalization, 
only $200,000, and only about $175,000 of that paid. These mer¬ 
chants, of course, controlled the traffic. They routed a percentage of 
their traffic via East St. Louis, where it was delivered to the boat line 
and transported to Kansas City at these rates I have spoken of, two- 
thirds of the rail rates, and handling as much of it as they could. 
All that they could not handle, which they did not have the capacity 
to handle, was diverted again to the rail lines. During 1907 there 
were 20 tons of freight diverted to 1 ton handled westbound. In 
1908 the same methods were pursued- 

Senator Stone. Diverted by your company ? 

Mr. Wilson. Diverted by our company to the rail lines. 

Senator Stone. It had been routed to your company? 

Mr. Wilson. It had been routed to our company, but we did not 
have the capacity to handle it. These two boats were of small ton¬ 
nage capacity. The Chester had a gross registered tonnage of about 
468 tons and an actual physical carrying capacity of not to exceed 
300 tons. The Tennessee was slightly less in tonnage and actual 
carrying capacity than that. 

So these merchants, not being stevedores, not knowing how to stow 
freight, had routed too much of their freight that way, and they had 
to divert it to rail lines, and the diversion, I think, was about 20 tons 


170 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

via rail lines to 1 ton handled by boat. In 1908 a little more careful 
selection of traffic was made, and we felt that we would have been 
able to handle it, but we were interrupted by unusual weather condi¬ 
tions, floods and the like, which prevented our handling a good deal 
of it, and we diverted that year only about 10 tons by rail to 1 ton 
handled by boats. The operations were slow and expensive, due to 
the fact that the river was not provided with lights. The river had 
been so long neglected that pilots had largely lost track of it, and it 
was necessary to feel and learn the channels again. It was necessary 
to lav the boats up at night, so that the maximum we could ever get 
out of operations, even under the most favorable circumstances, was 
about 16 to 18 hours a day out of the 24. We operated until Septem¬ 
ber, 1908, when we lost one steamer by sinking. She struck a sub¬ 
merged snag in full load and sunk in about 9 feet of water. The 
water was very low. The other boat was laid up at St. Louis, and 
she has been laid up there since. 

Senator Stoxe. Did you have any trouble with the insurance? 

Mr. Wilson. We had no insurance. Marine insurance is unobtain¬ 
able on the Missouri River at this time; has been for a long time. In 
operation of the new line, which we are now organizing, we figure 
on being able to operate our boats only about six months during the 
year, that being about all we can depend on for a sufficient depth of 
water. We want the river improved so that we can depend on a 
navigable depth during all of the open season. 

The Chairman. Is there anything further from this witness? 

(The witness was thereupon excused.) 

The Chairman. Senator Stone, is there anyone else you would like 
to call on the improvement of the Missouri River? 

Senator Stone. No; I think not. 

The Chairman. Senator Warner, do you want to be heard on it? 

Senator Warner. Not at present. 

The Chairman. Senator Lorimer, do you want to be heard? Is 
Senator Lorimer here? 

Senator Lorimer. I am here. 

The Chairman. Senator Lorimer, do you and Senator Cullom wish 
to be heard on the Chicago matter now ? 

Senator Lorimer. How much time will there be, Senator? 

The Chairman. I want to keep the committee here as long as I can, 
because we will be disturbed this afternoon probably on account of the 
postal savings bank bill. 

Senator Burton. I thought that did not come up until to-morrow, 
Senator. 

The Chairman. It is only quarter past 12. I want to close up 
some of these matters, if possible. 

It seems to me, about the Missouri River and the Mississippi River, 
we ought by this time to have received all the knowledge that is 
obtainable. 

Senator Stone. What is the suggestion of the chair? 

The Chairman. That we close up any discussion about the Chicago 
matter. 

Senator Stone. You mean before adjournment? 

The Chairman. Yes; before adjournment. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


171 


Senator Stone. It is about half past 12 now. 

The Chairman. Well, then, suppose we adjourn to meet at half 
past 1, and then dispose of all the discussion about the Chicago matter. 

Senator Lorimer. I will be here at half past 1, then, Senator. 

The Chairman. And will you have Senator Cullom? 

Senator Lorimer. Yes; I will have Senator Cullom here at that 
time. 

The Chairman. Then the committee will take a recess until half 
past 1. 

(At 12 o’clock and 30 minutes p. m. the committee took a recess 
until 1.30 p. m.) 


Appendix E. 


(Ilearings before the Committee on Commerce, United States Senate, in relation to the 
improvement of the Mississippi River, May 12, 1890.] 

Statement of Gen. Cyrus B. Comstock. 

Gen. Cyrus B. Comstock, president of the Mississippi River Com¬ 
mission, appeared before the committee. 

The Chairman. Are you the chairman of the Mississippi River 
Commission ? 

Gen. Comstock. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. How long have you been connected with the Mis¬ 
sissippi River Commission? 

Gen. Comstock. Since its organization in 1879. 

The Chairman. Have you ever given personal attention to the 
work ? 

Gen. Comstock. Prior to that I was a member of the board on 
the improvement of the Mississippi River, which reported on the 
improvement of the river prior to the organization of the Mississippi 
River Commission. 

The Chairman. Are you familiar with the Lake Borgne outlet 
improvement ? 

Gen. Comstock. In some degree. 

Senator Gibson. I suggest that Gen. Comstock make a statement of 
the plan that the commission has adopted, the work done, and the 
results achieved. 

The Chairman. I want to ask one or two more preliminary ques¬ 
tions, and then I will start him off. 

Have you examined with any attention the recent inundations of 
the Mississippi? 

Gen. Comstock. So far as the data have been worked up I have. 

The Chairman. The committee is desirous of getting, so that all 
money that Congress may appropriate for the Mississippi River 
shall not be wasted, as much information as you are able to give 
them in relation to the Mississippi River, its improvements, the 
method of improvements, etc., of course including the proposed out¬ 
let at Lake Borgne; and if you ivill go on and make your statement 
in your own way it will be agreeable to the committee. 

Gen. Comstock. The Mississippi River has widths of a mile and a 
half and possibly 2 miles in some places. In the worst places the 
commission has begun narrowing the river, or attempting to do so, 
down to a width of 3,500 feet in expectation of improving the low- 
water channel. They have tried it at one place, Plum Point. They 
have built, where they attempted to narrow the river, dikes out into 
the river and have put brushwork aprons on those dikes to keep the 
water from flowing through and make the water still, or partially 
still, behind them. 

172 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 173 


That is to produce contraction. Contraction has been produced 
and large deposits have been obtained behind the dikes built in that 
^ay. Lndei contraction on one side of the river, the river may cave 
very rapidly, and it may be necessary to protect the opposite bank 
to keep the river from running away from you. Where there, is a 
caving bend you want to hold that bend in order to prevent the river 
changing its form and carrying away the other works. These cav¬ 
ing banks are held by putting on them brush aprons and covering 
them with stone. That is the general method the commission has 
used. 


At Plum Point the water sometimes before the work began went 
down to 4^ or 5 feet. In the last six or eight years the lowest it has 
been has been about 8J feet, and a very decided improvement in the 
river has been made. 

The Chairman. What is the length of that? 

Gen. Comstock. Thirty-four miles. The work of the commission 
has been confined to some 15 or 16 miles. 

The Chairman. There the result has been satisfactory to the com¬ 
mission ? 


Gen. Comstock. Yes, sir. 

At the Lake Providence reach, 60 or 70 miles above Vicksburg, the 
same method was undertaken; pile dikes were built in that way and 
enormous deposits were obtained. There was revetment of banks at 
certain places, especially at Pilcher’s Point, Louisiana Bend. Those 
revetments became damaged. The appropriation for them for one 
year was not made, and in the following year Congress prohibited us 
from building revetments. The consequence was that we lost that 
work, something like 2 miles of it. That also interfered with our do¬ 
ing anything below; that is, the absence of money in the first year 
and the prohibition the second year, covering a period of three years 
altogether. 

The same thing affected us down at the towhead below at Myers- 
ville, and there also we lost a mile and a half or 2 miles of revetment. 

The dike work has essentially produced the results it was built to 
obtain so far, for works in the bed of the river. 

The commission has also expected to improve the river by building 
levees on its bank. It has spent in building those levees something 
like $3,000,000. 

Those two methods combine the work done by the commission. 

In reference to the outlet question, I made a report some time 
ago on the specific outlet proposition of Capt. Cowden at Lake 
Borgne, and I do not know that I can do better than to read it. 

Senator Gibson. I did not understand you to say, General, what 
the results achieved at Lake Providence were, whether the channel 
responded, what the behavior of the river was, after you completed 
or partially completed your w r ork. 

Gen. Comstock. The channel has been better there since the work 
has been carried on so far as it has been done. 

Senator Gibson. How much have you spent on the levees? 

Gen. Comstock. Something over $3,000,000. 

Senator Gibson. What proportion of the levees erected by you has 
given way in this flood? 

Gen. Comstock. I am not able to answer that. 

Senator Gibson. Some of your subordinates can, probably. 


30573°—H. Rep. 300, 63-2, pt 2--12 


174 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

Gen. Comstock. Yes, sir. 

Senator Washburn. What depth of channel was there before yon 
commenced ? 

Gen. Comstock. Five or G feet; 5 feet probably. 

Senator Washburn. And you have nearly doubled it? 

Gen. Comstock. We have increased it about one-half. 

In regard to the Lake Borgne outlet I would say, a canal a mile 
in width leading from the Mississippi into Lake Borgne, its bottom 
being everywhere 10 feet below low water, as proposed by the bill, 
would, by an approximate computation, which is the only one prac¬ 
ticable in such a case, divert from the Mississippi about 400,000 
cubic feet per second, when the stage of the river near Lake Borgne 
is about 7 feet above Gulf level, and 500,000 cubic feet when the 
stage there is about 9 feet. The corresponding stages at Carrollton 
would be about 10 and 12 feet (since the slope would at least be the 
present high-water slope), the maximum stage there being 15.6 
above mean Gulf. An outlet diverting 400,000 cubic feet per second 
would lower the highest flood at Carrollton by about 6 feet. 

These computations are based on the discharge curve at Carroll¬ 
ton of 1883. If more water is forced past Carrollton hereafter by 
maintaining levees above, these figures will need modification. Judg¬ 
ing from the effect of local changes of flood height elsewhere on 
the river, this lowering of flood height at Carrollton would die 
out in something like 200 miles in ascending the river. Since for 
this distance the slopes would be steepened, it follows that velocities 
would be increased, with their destructive effects on the banks of 
the river and on levees. The outlet would do no good to naviga¬ 
tion, but rather the reverse. The first effect of taking 400,000 cubic 
feet per second out of the Mississippi would be a large lowering of 
the flood surface near the outlet. The flow through Lake Borgne 
would itself be a river of large size. Both theory and experience 
show that when, at all stages, a reduction in the size of a river 
flowing in alluvial soil is made, or the river is split in two, the 
smaller rivers gradually take greater slopes than the main river 
had. Hence both the main river and the new river would grad¬ 
ually increase their slopes to suit the new conditions. Since the 
slope begins at the Gulf, it can not become greater on the main 
stream below Lake Borgne, which is now nearly straight, without 
increasing flood heights at Lake Borgne. After some years, then, if 
both routes to the sea remain large rivers, the flood level above the 
outlet would be higher than it is now unless (as indeed is not im¬ 
probable) the large amount of sediment which would be dropped 
into Lake Borgne (where the flood velocities would at first be but 
one-sixth of those in the Mississippi) should close this outlet, thus 
repairing the injury done to the main river. A large diversion of 
flow from the Mississippi to Lake Borgne would also seriously 
diminish the depth at the present mouths of the river. 

For the following reasons, then, no important outlet at Lake 
Borgne should be either undertaken or permitted: 

(1) It would for some years lower the floods at the outlet, accel¬ 
erate velocities above it, and increase caving and the consequent de¬ 
struction of levees. 

(2) It would cause shoaling at the present mouths of the river. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 175 

(3) If both the new outlet and the main river below it remained 
important streams—that is, if neither of them closed itself under 
the action of natural causes—the flood heights at Lake Borgne and 
New Orleans would after some years be greater than they are now. 

It may be noted that if the United States desired such an outlet, 
its construction should be open to public competition instead of be¬ 
ing a monopoly. 

That relates only to forming an outlet which shall be a permanent 
stream. I think the water can be spared from the Mississippi River 
without injury to navigation under certain circumstances. 

The Chairman. Do you think that would be desirable? 

Gen. Comstock. I think that is desirable. At the Atchafalaya I 
think it is desirable to take five hundred or six hundred thousand 
cubic feet per second out of the river. In the same connection I 
have some memoranda as to outlets other than this outlet, if you 
wish to hear it. 

The Chairman. Yes, sir. 

Senator Washburn. Before you proceed, let me ask you what 
would be the effect immediately on the main stream if you were to 
make a low-water outlet? 

Gen. Comstock. I think it would shoal up immediately below, but 
not enough to injure navigation. 

Senator Washburn. Taking as much water out as you say you 
would, it would shoal at the jetties? 

Gen. Comstock. Yes, sir; and for 10 miles above there. 

Senator Washburn. And still be an enormous amount of water? 

Gen. Comstock. Yes, sir; still about one-half or tw T o-thirds of the 
river, unless in making this outlet the whole river saw fit to go this 
way [indicating], which I do not think is probable. It will do no 
good to navigation, and it would be of doubtful ultimate benefit to 
the levees. 

Senator Washburn. What has been the ultimate effect of opening 
Bonnet Carre? 

Gen. Comstock. Its effect in what way ? 

Senator Washburn. Below where it discharges; leads from the 
Mississippi into Lake Pontchartrain. Is that still open? 

Gen. Comstock. It has been closed several years. 

Senator Washburn. What was the effect when it was open? 

Gen. Comstock. I think probably it shoaled the river somewhat 
below, but not enough to interfere with navigation. 

Outlets have often been proposed as a method of reducing flood 
heights on the Mississippi. The immediate results of flood heights 
are so evident and so beneficial when a large crevasse is formed, the 
good results of an opening far larger than ever occurs naturally 
seem so immediate and apparent that it is not strange that many 
persons look on them as the true remedy for great floods. 

In a letter of February 1, 1890, to the Chief of Engineers, I con¬ 
sidered the effects of making an outlet a mile wide and to a depth of 
10 feet below low water from the Mississippi River into Lake Borgne, 
and need not repeat the discussion here. In it I assumed what is 
well known to all persons familiar with hydraulics, namely, that a 
sedimentary river flowing in its own alluvion only acquires a stable 
regimen when it has taken a slope suitable to its varying discharges 


176 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

and to the material through which it flows, and, as a rule, that these 
slopes diminish as the size of the river increases and increases as the 
size of the river decreases. It may be well to give some examples of 
this general fact. 

The South Pass carried in 1875 about one-fourth of the water that 
the Southwest Pass did. Its slope from the head of the passes to its 
original bar was about one-third greater than that of the Southwest 
Pass. 

The observed discharges of the Atchafalaya in 1882 were from one- 
seventh to one-tenth of those of the Mississippi. Its average slope to 
the Gulf is double that of the Mississippi. 

The Sulina Pass in the delta of the Danube carries two twenty- 
sevenths of the total river flow, while the St. George Pass carries 
eight twenty-sevenths. The slope of the Sulina is one-half greater 
than that of the St. George Pass. 

These examples are sufficient to illustrate the general rule already 
stated, that sedimentary rivers flowing in their own alluvion take 
larger slopes the smaller they are. Hence, if at Lake Borgne or else¬ 
where in its delta the Mississippi were divided into two rivers, since 
each would be smaller than the present river, the two new rivers 
would go to work to obtain the new and steeper slopes suited to 
dimensions smaller than those of the original river, and hence would 
build up their beds. This process would only cease when the steeper 
slopes needed by each were obtained. Since both rivers would then 
have one end at the gulf, and have steeper slopes up to their point 
of divergence than the main river now has, the flood surface of the 
rivers at that point would be higher than now. 

There have been cases where the experiment of dividing a river in 
two has been tried by nature or by man. About A. D. 1438 the 
Adige broke its levees and poured its waters south into the Cas- 
tagnoro and Canale Bianco, which then formed a drainage stream 
parallel to the Po. In 1545 the break had so increased that two- 
thirds of the low-water flow of the Adige and three-fourths of the 
high-water flow went through it. A low darn was built across the 
Castagnoro to check the flow into it, and both rivers raised their beds. 
In 1678 a new dam was built, as the old one was then buried in the 
deposit. The bed still rose. In 1791 a masonry dam 39 feet high, 
with many archways through it to allow flood's to pass, was built 
across the Castagnoro. The bed continued to rise, and the floods on 
the Adige were so high that in 1838 the Castagnoro was permanently 
closed. In the six years following the closure the floods in the Adige 
fell, and the more ’markedly the nearer the point considered was to 
the Castagnoro. 

Thus far only outlets have been considered which are permanent 
rivers. For such outlets the effect in finally raising the flood surface 
of the main river will be the greater as the flow of the outlet is more 
nearly equal to the remaining flow in the main river. If the outlet 
is small, its effect on the main river will be small. 

Places where there is no escape except at high stages are some¬ 
times called outlets. For many years prior to the recent closing of 
levee gaps along the Mississippi below Bed River, and of the gaps 
which permitted water to escape from the vicinity of Turnbulls 
Island into the Atchafalaya Basin, the maximum flood flow past 
New Orleans was but about 1,100,000 cubic feet per second. This 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 177 

flow is ample for all navigation purposes, and no practical gain to 
navigation will result from increasing it. In 1882 it was estimated 
2,200,000 cubic feet per second passed the latitude of 
Ked River mouth. It has been proposed to allow only 200,000 
cubic feet per second to go down the Atchafalaya, leaving 1,900,000 
or 2,000,000 cubic feet per second to go down the main river. 

In my judgment, until the heights of levees below. Red River 
are largely increased, there should be left a free opportunity for the 
escape overland of 400,000 cubic feet per second from the vicinity 
of Turnbulls Island into the Atchafalaya Basin, in such floods as 
those of 1882, in addition to the 200,000 cubic feet per second which 
is to go down the Atchafalaya. If such an escape, existing only at 
high water, be called an outlet, then I think it necessary, at least for 
the present. It will do no harm to navigation, which was good 
enough for many years before the escape into the Atchafalaya Basin 
was reduced. On the other hand, to try to force in a great flood— 
1,900,000 cubic feet per second past New Orleans—with levees at 
present height, is sure to renew the disasters to levees at or below 
Red River which have occurred this year. The injury resulting from 
many breaks below Red River is so much greater than that resulting 
from the escape into the Atchafalaya Basin from the vicinity of 
Turnbulls Island that the lesser interest should yield to the greater 
until it is possible to protect both. 

It may be concluded, then, that the reduction, by any large amount, 
of the flow of the Mississippi at Lake Borgne below what it has 
been for many years will be ultimately followed by a rise in the 
flood heights at that place and a shoaling of the river below and at 
its mouth. 

Also that until levees below Red River are much higher than they 
are now, about 600,000 feet per second in the greatest floods should 
be allowed to go into the Atchafalaya Basin, thus relieving the river 
below. 

The opinion that the head of the Atchafalaya Basin should not 
be closed by levees was urged by me in the annual report of the 
Mississippi River Commission for 1884. 

There is one other question, and that is that leveed rivers raise 
their beds higher and higher as the levees are raised. That is a very 
essential question in levees as long as are those on the Mississippi, 
and I have some memoranda as to them which I can read to the 
committee. 

The Chairman. The statement has been made that the bed of 
the Mississippi River has risen some 7 or 8 feet. 

Gen. Comstock. I have heard that. I have examined that question 
also. I have prepared a statement as to that question. 

The statement is often made that leveed rivers raise their beds 
higher and higher as levees are raised, and hence that levees will 
give no permanent relief against overflow. These statements are 
usually made from theoretical opinions and without a thorough 
knowledge of the theoretical side of the subject, and probably with¬ 
out any knowledge of the facts of experience, which alone can lead 
to conclusions entirely safe. The river Po has long been leveed, 
and it is often stated that its bed has risen largely in consequence 
of levees. The following data will show how unfounded is the 


178 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


statement that the bed has risen by amounts that are of much im¬ 
portance : 

At the revival of civilization the levees on the Po were com¬ 
plete and continuous from Cremona to the mouth of the Oglio 49 
kilometers, or 58.4 miles. About A. D. 1300 they were carried farther 
down the river, and in the succeeding centuries to near its mouth. 
In the present century levees have been systemized as to height. Four 
hundred kilometers, 248J miles, were below the flood of 1872. At 
the end of 1877 it was expected to reduce this to about 30 kilometers, 
or 18 miles. (Cenni monografici sull’ idraulica fluviale in Italia. 
Roma, 1878.) 

Zendrini, in 1720, observed an extreme low water at Ponte Lagos¬ 
curo, only .36 foot less than that of 1817; and at the dam of Gov- 
ernolo, near the mouth of the Mincio, the river was 1.3 feet lower 
than a stage of water of 1609, declared by Bardazzoli to be mar¬ 
velous (Lombardini, Notizii). 

The above gauge readings, which have been only kept since 
1807, show that there has been no important rise of the bed of the 
river (since that could not rise without raising the low-water sur¬ 
face) at Ponte Lagoscuro in the 68 years covered, and in connection 
with Zendrini’s observations, show that there has been no probable 
rise of any importance since 1720, although the raising of levees has 
been going on during this period. Lombardini (Dei Congiamenti 
del Po, 1852, p. 17) examines this question for points above Ponte 
Lagoscuro, which itself is 92 kilometers (57 miles) from the mouth 
of the Po. He concludes that at Ostiglia, which is 183 kilometers 
(114 miles) above the mouth, the bed appears to have risen a few 
decimeters (decimeter=3.9 inches) in a century, while at Governolo, 
15 kilometers (9J miles) above, it appears to have been stationary 
for four centuries. 

Comparing the means from 1817 to 1850 with those from 1851 
to 1867, it will be seen that a small rise in low-water heights is in¬ 
dicated, but the observations at several stations in the first period 
were few, and hence the results are uncertain. 

The flood heights have, however, steadily risen. The following 
greatest floods are recorded: 



Meters. 

Feet. 

Year. 

1757-1796. 

2.15 
2.68 
3.22 

7.1 

8.8 

10.6 

1777 

1833 

1872 

1797-1836.. 

1837-1877. 



From this table it appears that the highest floods have increased 
in height since 1705 by 1.4 meters (4.6 feet). The rise in flood 
heights on the Po has not been confined to the single Pontelagoscuro, 
but has extended far above. 

Gallizia (Giornale del Genio civile, Feb., 1878) examines this 
question and gives the following results. The miles given are 
reckoned from the mouth of the river: 

“At Becca (394 kilometers, or 245 miles), within the century, 
there is a progressive rise of 1.53 meters (5 feet) from 1801 to 
1857; at Corossa (337 kilometers, or 209 miles) the flood of 1801 
read 6.35 meters, and their heights rose gradually to 7.95 meters in 












FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 179 

1872, or to 7.45 meters if allowance is made for a change of bed at 
this place. At Casalmaggiore (233 kilometers, or 145 miles), from 
5.60 meters in 1801 the floods rose gradually to 6.07 meters in 1868, 
a rise of 0.47 meters, or 1.5 feet. At Ostiglia (149 kilometers, or 
93 miles), from 6.80 meters in 1801, and 7.50 meters in 1812 to 
8.56 meters, although the river was not entirely confined. At Pon- 
telagoscuro (92 kilometers, or 57 miles), from 2.19 meters sopra 
guardia , in 1801, to 3.32 meters in 1872; the river not being entirely 
confined in this last year—a rise of 1.13 meters (3.7 feet) ; so that 
on the average there has certainly been a rise of more than a meter 
(3.28 feet) in the last 75 years along the whole course of the leveed 
river, excluding the Parma Cremona front, where the levees are far 
apart and the rise is about one-half as much.” 

Cenni Monografii sull ’idraulica (p. 59) attributes the increased 
heights of the great flood of 1839 to “ the more perfect leveeing of 
the Po and its tributaries, preventing the lateral escape of the 
waters and sending in a canal to the sea that which previously 
flowed over the country.” 

Lombardini (II Grande Estuario Adriatico, p. 96) says the in¬ 
creased floods “ arise in part from levees which hinder their spread¬ 
ing out, and also from the deforesting of mountain slopes.” 

Gallizia (loc. cit.) attributes increase of floods to deforesting, 
to the interest each one has to get rid of injurious water without 
consideration for those below him, to the leveeing of upper parts of 
rivers and their tributaries, and to the extension of the river mouth 
into the sea. 

To sum up in reference to the Po, it may be said that during the 
present century the levees on the Po have been systematized and 
raised to follow an increase in flood height that in 75 years amounted 
to about 3 feet along the leveed portion of the river; and that there 
is some evidence of a small rise in the extreme low-water surface 
of the river, which may be caused by a rise of the bed. It should be 
noticed, however, that the rise in the bed (if it really exists) 
amounted to only two-hundredths of a foot a year, and that the 
annual cost of raising levees to keep up with it would be but a small 
part of the annual cost of a complete system of levees. 

As to the rise in the flood level as the waters are more and more 
thoroughly confined, it may be said that this was a necessary result 
of confinement; that the same thing occurs on the Mississippi, and 
that it will cease when the levees have been built high enough to con¬ 
tain the greatest floods. 

On the Po thus far during the last 75 years the effect of the con¬ 
finement of waters in raising the flood level has far exceeded any 
tendency that confinement may have had to reduce flood heights by 
scouring the bed. 

Senator Washburn. Are the conditions the same in the valley of 
the Po as in the Mississippi Valley? 

Gen. Comstock. Yes, sir; essentially the same; an alluvial stream. 

Senator Cullom. So that your conclusion is that the bed of the 
river has not risen? 

Gen. Comstock. Not to any considerable amount; not to exceed 
6 or 8 inches. 

Senator Cullom. For how long a period? 


180 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


Gen. Comstock. From 75 to 100 years. 

Senator Cullom. Oh, that is the Po. What is the fact with refer¬ 
ence to the Mississippi River? 

Gen. Comstock. Our records of low water run back only 25 or 
30 years. Our records do not go back far enough to draw an intelli¬ 
gent conclusion. You w r ant a period of from 75 to 100 years to say 
positively whether any changes have occurred. 

The Rhine is also a river which, below Dusseldorf, has long been 
leveed, and if levees raise the bed of a river here, they should have 
produced their full effects, as they are rarely broken. 

It will be seen that the low-water surface appears to have fallen 
in the last hundred years at Emmerich, and possibly at Cologne. 

Hagen (Wasserstiinde in den preussischen Stromen, p. 12) care¬ 
fully examines the gauge readings at Cologne, from 1846 to 1879, 
and at Dusseldorf from 1800 to 1879, to detect changes in high and 
low water heights. Treating the gauge reading by the method of 
least squares, he found the most probable annual change in the water 
heights. At Dusseldorf he found that, with great probability, there 
was an annual sinking of the maximum high water in each year 
amounting to 0.3 inch; that the mean stage did not change, and that 
the annual lowest waters showed, with some probability, an annual 
rise of one-twelfth of an inch. 

For Cologne he found that, with great probability, the high 
waters had sunk, and the lowest waters has risen by about the same 
amounts as at Dusseldorf. A rise of one-twelfth of an inch a year, 
or 8 inches in a hundred years, is so small as not to be an important 
matter in a system of levees; and if the hundred years of the table 
above are taken, this rise disappears. 

It has often been asserted that the bed of the Hoang Ho, or 
Yellow River of China, has risen above the surrounding country, 
where it is leveed. The error, originally due to Abbe Hue, has 
been repeated by English writers on China. The following extract 
from a letter to me by Gen. J. H. Wilson (a very competent au¬ 
thority) gives reliable information on the subject: 

Wilmington, Del., May 6, 1890. 

******* 

In reply I hasten to say that I crossed the Yellow River on the 7th of Janu¬ 
ary, 1S66. near the city of Kai-fong-fu, in the province of Honan, and visited 
the site of the great break of 1853, about 30 miles below Kai-fong-fu; also 
traversed its embankments or levees on both banks of the river, visiting and 
measuring them at various points between Kai-fong-fu and Chinan-fu in the 
Province of Shan-Toong, taking observations, notes, and measurements, and hav¬ 
ing specially in view the repair and maintenance of the embankments, their pres¬ 
ent condition, and the effects produced by them. I had no instruments, however, 
except a hand level, sextant, and tape line, and could therefore make no accu¬ 
rate levels across embankments, bed of the stream, fore shores, and adjacent 
plains, but the conclusion I came to in regard to the influence of the levees upon 
the bed of the river was that they had nowhere filled it to a higher level than 
the adjacent country. I bad heard of Father Hue’s narrative on tlr't point, and 
I visited the plain at which the river had left its old channel in 1S53, leading 
to the sea south of the peninsula of Shan-Toong. and made itself an absolutely 
new one to the Gulf of Pe Chi Li, north of that peninsula. Between this place— 
known on the maps of Asia (Kirke Johnson’s is the best) as Lung mum Ku— 
and Kai-fong-fu, the embankment was very large, but it was near the latter 
place that the great break occurred two years ago. This w f, s closed after in¬ 
credible efforts and great expense, and this river forced to resume its old chan- 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


181 


nel, where it is now emptying itself, according to my advices of a few months 
ago, and where it will most probably continue to empty itself till it can find a 
shorter line and steeper declivity to tide level. 

By referring to my little book on China (Appleton & Co.), you will get other 
details. 

In conclusion I do not hesitate to say that I can not but believe that Abbe 
Hue was entirely mistaken in regard to the silting up of the channel, and that 
an exhaustive survey would prove beyond a doubt that no such silting as to 
raise any part of the bed above the adjacent country has ever taken place. 

Yours, very truly, 


James H. Wilson. 


. The question of the rise of bed of the Mississippi will now be con¬ 
sidered. Unfortunately it has not been studied as thoroughly as 
the Rhine and Po, and its gauge records go back but a few decades. 

Levee building has gone on most rapidly since 1880, and as the 
river was very low in December and January, 1887-88, and again in 
October and November, 1889, if there has been any important rise 
in the river bed resulting therefrom it should show itself in a cor¬ 
responding rise in the extreme low-water surface. 

Several places will be considered, selecting those where our gauge 
records cover as many years as possible. 

(1) Cairo .—The lowest water record extends back to 1859, with 
breaks, but is continuous since 1871. January 1, 1888, the gauge 
read 1.8 feet, and October 22,1889, it read 2.7 feet. From November 
10, 1859, to these dates the record gives but three years when the 
water was as low as in 1888 and 1889. These years were: 


Feet. 

Dec. 26, 1871, Cairo gauge_:_—1.0 

Dec. 6, 1872, Cairo gauge_ 1. 0 

Jan. 1, 1877, Cairo gauge_ 1.0 


These gauge readings are lower than those of 1888 and 1889, but 
the period since 1880 is entirely too short to conclude that in it 
there was a year in which the discharge reached its lowest value, 
thus giving extreme low water. The greater low-water heights in 
1888 and 1889 may be simply due to there being more water flowing 
in the river at those times than in 1871. If in 17 years following 
1888 there are no gauge readings as low as those of 1871, 1872, and 
1877, it will in some degree indicate but not prove that the bed has 
risen. At present the data do not extend over a period long enough 
to draw any reliable conclusions. 

(2) Memphis .—This gauge read: 


Feet. 

Nov. 20, 1887_1.20 

Jan. 4, 1888___0. 80 

Oct. 26, 1889---1. 90 


The records of low water before these dates extend back to 1848 
and are continuous back to 1871. The records back to 1848 give but 
three dates when the water was lower than on January 4, 1888, 
namely, 0.80 feet. These dates are: 


Feet. 

Dec. 29 1871_—0. 92 

Dec. 25, 1872_ —0. 95 

Jan. 2, 1877___ +0. 75 


Here again the extremely low waters of 1871 and 1872 show them¬ 
selves, and they are lower than any since 1880. But, as was said in 











182 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


reference to Cairo, the period since 1880 is entirely too short to en¬ 
able us to assume that in it there has been a year of minimum flow, or, 
what amounts to the same thing, that there will not in a few years 
occur a stage as low as that of December 29, 1871. 

(3) Helena .—The low-water record is continuous, excepting 1878 


and 1879, back to 1871. The gauge read: 

Feet. 

Dec. 29, 1871___1.15 

Dec. 26, 1872_0.00 

The record afterwards gives no waters as low as these till 1887. 
The gauge read: 

Feet. 

Nov. 20, 1887_ 1.20 

Jan. 4, 1888_0.80 


Comparison of the two periods gives a difference too small to estab¬ 
lish a rise of low-water level. 

(4) Lake Providence .—The low-water record extends back to 1872 
and the lowest waters are: 


Feet. 

Dec. 29, 1872_—3.85 

Oct. 16, 1879_ 0. 55 

Since 1880 the two lowest waters are: 

Feet 

Nov. 22, 1887_1. 52 

Oct. 31, 1889_2. 80 


There seems to have been a great depression of low water in this 
part of the river about 1872. The Terrapin Neck cut-off, shortening 
the river about 16 miles, occurred in 1866 and may have been a partial 
cause. The gauge readings given indicate a rise in the water surface 
and probably of the bed at Lake Providence since 1872. 

(5) Vicksburg .—Excepting 1878 and 1879, the low-water record is 


continuous back to 1872. The gauge read: 

Feet 

Dec. 30, 1872_—1.30 

From this date to 1886 the lowest record is: 

Feet. 

Jan. 6, 1887___2.25 


Since 1880 we have: 

Nov. 16, 1886_ 

Nov. 24, 1887_ 

Jan. 7, 1888_ 

Oct. 29, 1889_ 


Feet. 
0. 00 
3. 91 
1. 32 
0. 80 


Here the gauge records indicate a fall in the low-water surface and 
perhaps a fall in the bed. The question is complicated by the Terra¬ 
pin Neck cut-off of 1866, the Vicksburg cut-off of 1876, and the Davis 
Island cut-off of 1867. 

From 1872 to 1881 the low-water fall in the surface of the river 
between Lake Providence and Vicksburg varied between 21.0 feet 
and 22.9 feet; in 1883 it was 24.9; in 1886, 26.2; in 1887, 29.0; in 
1888, 26.7: and in 1889, 27.2 feet. The change of fall from 22.6 
feet in 1887 to 29.0 feet in 1887, amounting to 6.4 feet, is very great. 
About two-thirds appear to be due to a sinking of the low-water 
plane at Vicksburg and the rest to a rise in the low-water plane at 
Lake Providence. The low-water slope from Lake Providence to 
















FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


183 


Vicksburg was in 1884 still much greater than just above or below. 
Its great value was probably due to the cut-offs. In 1884 the dis¬ 
tance from Lake Providence to Vicksburg was 57 miles; the sum 
of the two cut-offs was 18 miles. If we suppose that before these 
two cut-offs the river was two-thirds of this 18 miles longer than 
now, or the distance from Lake Providence to Vicksburg to have 
been 69 miles, the slope would have been but fifty-seven sixty- 
ninths of its present value. The result of the cut-offs would be to 
increase the velocity of the river above and near them. This in¬ 
crease of velocity would tend to scour the bed and banks, perhaps 
making a deposit in the river below the Davis cut-off and tem¬ 
porarily raising the bed there, and it may be that it is now return¬ 
ing to its normal low-water position by removing the deposits below. 

(6) Red River Landing .—The low-water record is continuous 
back to 1872, which was the year of the lowest known low water, 
the gauge reading 0.0. In 1879 it fell as low as 0.55 and in 1887 
to 0.47. The difference in low-water heights of 1872 and 1887 is 
too small to be evidence of a rise in the bed of the river. 

Thus far only low waters of the Mississippi have been consid¬ 
ered. The higli-water records cover longer periods, but as an 
increased high water may result from confining the floods between 
lines, as well as from a rise of the bed of the river, it can not be 
concluded from a rise of flood height in the river that the bed has 
also risen. At Cairo— 


Feet. 

June 21, 1858, the gauge read-49.6 

May 2, 1862_50.8 

Mar. 21, 1867_51.0 

The river did not again reach these heights till— 

Feet. 

Feb. 26, 1882_51. 87 

Feb. 27, 1883_52.17 


This increase in the later heights is not supposed to indicate any 
rise of bed, but can be accounted for solely by a greater flood dis¬ 
charge. 

At Memphis the record goes back to 1828. In 1862 the river 
reached a flood height of 34.45, the record then showing no greater 
one. In 1882 the greatest height was 35.15; in 1887, 35.30 ; and in 
1890, 35.60. This rise of 1.1 feet since 1862 may be accounted for 
by a greater discharge, by the construction of levees below Mem¬ 
phis, and perhaps by the influence of railroads across the St. Fran¬ 
cis bottom, without the supposition of a rise of bed. 

At Vicksburg the record goes back to 1828. The highest known 
water was 51.1 feet in 1862. The next highest was 49.1 March 15, 
1890. Here there is no indication of a rise of bed. 

At Natchez the record goes back to 1802. The highest water was 
49.9 in 1862. In 1890 the highest water was 48.6 on March 22. In 
1815 the highest water was 48.5. There is no indication of a rise of 
bed. 

From an examination of the Po and Rhine it may. be concluded 
that if their beds rise in the leveed portions (which is not entirely 
certain from the data) it is at so slow a rate as not to be an im- 







184 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


portant factor in the maintenance of a levee system. With levees 
10 feet high, if the bed rose at the rate of 1 foot in a hundred years, 
the cost of raising a line of levees having the length of the present 
Mississippi system—about 1,300 miles—by this 1 foot, would be but 
about $4,000,000, distributed over the country, or $40,000 per annum, 
which is a small part of the annual cost of the system. 

On the Mississippi the records, while not extending over a period 
long enough to give final results, do not, so far as they go, indicate 
that the bed has risen. 

The opinion so often held, that levees cause a river bed to rise, 
is probably due to the fact that the bed of a river does sometimes 
rise, although, leveed, and hence it is concluded that the levees cause 
the rise. Any sedimentary stream having a definite succession of 
stages and discharges and flowing in its own alluvion, finally takes 
such a slope as will give a velocity sufficient to enable it to carry its 
sediment, whether derived from above or from its own banks and 
bed farther downstream, without on the whole scouring or filling 
its bed. An average velocity less than this will give rise to deposits 
in its bed, or if it is crooked it will become straight, thus in either 
case increasing its slope and velocity toward their normal values. 
An average velocity greater than this will scour its bed or cause 
caving in its convex bends, thus increasing its length and diminish¬ 
ing its slope and velocity to such values as its bed can bear without, 
on the whole, scouring or filling. When, therefore, the slope of a 
sedimentary stream suddenly diminishes from that which it needs 
for a stable regimen, its velocity also diminishes; it drops a part of 
its alluvion and its bed rises. Thus, when the Mississippi enters 
the Gulf of Mexico its slope suddenly diminishes, its velocity di¬ 
minishes, and it builds up bars out in deep water. So Bayou La¬ 
fourche, when its waters fall to the level of swamps but a few feet 
above Gulf level, builds up its bed, necessitating high levees. So, 
too, the Adige, where it reaches the low plains of the Po, needs for 
permanence a steeper slope that the country has and raises its bed 
above it. In all these cases the bed would rise without levees. 

There is one more cause for the rise of bed of a sedimentary river, 
which, however, acts at a very slow rate. The Mississippi pushes 
its mouths out into the Gulf at the rate of about 4 miles in a century, 
and this increase in length requires a corresponding increase in fall 
of water surface to make the waters flow out. An increase of 4 miles 
in length would, with existing slopes, raise the high-water surface at 
New Orleans about 0.7 foot. The cost of raising levees to correspond 
with this rise per century in the water surface would, as has already 
been seen, be a small part of the annual ccst of the system.' 

It has often been asserted that the bed of the Hoang Ho, or Yellow 
River, of China, has risen above the surrounding country where it is 
leveed and is causing trouble. I wrote to Gen. Wilson in reference to 
that, and he told me some time ago about it, and he assures me that 
he examined that river with reference to levees at a number of points; 
that the test he made was by using a hand level, tapelines, and sex¬ 
tant, and in his opinion at no place is the bed of the Hoang Ho River 
as high as the surrounding country. 

Senator Washburn. He thinks that the bed has not risen since 
the levees have been built. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 185 

Gen. Comstock. The levees have been there for hundreds of years, 
but the bed of the river has at no place risen to a higher level than 
the surrounding country. 

The Chairman. The levees on that river are very high? 

Gen. Comstock. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. The Chinese minister wrote to some gentleman the 
other day that they were as high as the dwellings. 

Gen. Comstock. Yes, sir; he speaks of the break that happened 
a few years ago, and he says it was of an enormous extent. Now, 
with reference to the Mississippi River at Cairo, it was minus 1 foot 
in 1871, which was the lowest ever known. In January, 1888, it went 
down 1.8 feet, so that in 1871 it was about 2.8 feet lower than it was 
in 1888. That may indicate some slight rise in the bed of the river 
there, but it is equally possible that it was due to the fact that in 1888 
the river was larger than it was in 1881; that is, the river flow was 
larger. 

Of course the height of this low-water surface depends upon the 
volume of water that runs through it. Sometimes the river builds 
bars across itself which makes the water rise higher. I do not think 
we have any evidence to show that the river has risen at Cairo, but 
if you find that the lowest water in 1888 is 2.8 feet higher than it was 
in 1871, which covers a period of 17 years, then if in 17 years more it 
does not fall as low as in 1871, there will be some evidence that the 
river bed has risen. 

At Memphis that same year the low water produced a somewhat 
similar result. In January, 1888, the river was eight-tenths of a foot 
on the gauge. In 1871 it was minus ninety-two hundredths; that is 
the difference of 1.7 feet. These same remarks might be applied as 
well to the other. So' far as figures go, it indicates a slight rise there. 
From Cairo to Memphis there have been no levees. 

At Vicksburg—the lowest water in 1872—the gauge was minus 
1.3 feet, November 24, 1887, it was minus 3.91 feet—that is to say, 
the lowest water there was 2.6 lower at Vicksburg in 1882 than it 
was in 1871. It is due to the cut-offs which occurred there in 1876, 
1866, and 1867. 

Senator Cullom. If it meant anything more than local causes, it 
would reduce the bed of the river below, and there you have levees. 

Gen. Comstock. Yes, sir; and it has got down 2.6 feet. 

At Red River the Ioav- water record is continuous back to 1872. 
In 1872 it fell to zero and in 1887 to forty-seven hundredths, so that 
the river in 1887 was only four-tenths higher than it was in 1872. 
So that it can be safely said, so far as our records go, and that is 
the most reliable information existing, there is no certain rise in 
the bed of the Mississippi at any point, even at Cairo. I am not 
sure but that that may be due to difference of discharge. The river 
has not been completely leveed there. 

Senator Cullom. Would leveeing below have any effect upon the 
river at Cairo? 

Gen. Comstock. Nothing to speak of. It is only continuous when 
you get down to Arkansas City, which is 438 miles below Cairo. 

The Chairman. It, is stated in some of these papers that the Eads 
jetties for narrowing the river there have reduced the stream and 


186 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


have raised the bottom of the river above it. What have you to say 
as to that? 

Gen. Comstock. I would attach no value whatever to such a state¬ 
ment as that, unless the figures were given to me, and I should not 
believe it even then. 

Senator Cullom. Do you mean the figures of the cause ? 

Gen. Comstock. I mean the figures—that is to say, if you put any 
obstruction in the river, you would raise the water above it in some 
small degree. I do not suppose it is possible that these jetties have 
raised the river at New Orleans by 2 inches. 

Senator Washburn. We had Capt. Leathers before the committee 
the other day, and I asked him this question: 

“As I understand the theory of the Mississippi Liver Commis¬ 
sion, the theory upon which appropriations have been made, it has 
been that of contracting the river, contracting the current so as to 
wash out and lower the bed of the river, and in consequence give a 
greater depth of navigable water? 

“ Senator Gibson. The theory, Senator, is this: Not to contract 
it beyond its natural limits, but to keep it within its natural banks. 

“ Senator Washburn. From your experience, is that the effect it 
has had, to lower the bed of the river, or has the bed of the river 
been raised? 

“ Mr. Leathers. As you have contracted you have filled the bot¬ 
tom, and you have elevated the surface. I think that the work 
which has been done by the commission has been a disastrous thing 
to the people in the valley. I have seen no improvement there what¬ 
ever toward that. We have got for navigable purposes 3 or 4 feet 
more water going to sea than we ever had, but it has been at the 
expense of the planters in the valley, putting 5 or 6 feet of water on 
them.” 

Now, the statement, as the chairman has just remarked, has been 
made here repeatedly that the result of these levees had been to 
raise the bottom of the river from 6 to 7 feet. You state that is not 
the fact, do you ? 

Gen. Comstock. It is not the fact. 

Senator Washburn. As a matter of fact, it has not been raised 
at all? 

Gen. Comstock. I do not think it has. I have not formed any 
certain conclusion that it has been raised at all. As to the rise in 
high-water surface, I have no doubt that the perfecting of the levees 
has raised the water. 

The Chairman. To what expense have you gone to in building 
the levees? 

Gen. Comstock. About $3,000,000. 

The Chairman. With reference to navigation alone? 

Gen. Comstock. That is the way the commission has constructed 
the law. The law provides that it shall not be spent on levees ex¬ 
cept as a part of the plan to improve navigation, etc. 

The Chairman. What would be the effect of leveeing the Mis¬ 
sissippi River from top to bottom? 

Gen. Comstock. In what respect? 

The Chairman. As to navigation. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


187 


Gen Comstock. I do not think it would improve it sufficiently 
to make that in any degree an economical method of improving the 
river. 

The Chairman. You resort to other methods? 

Gen. Comstock. I would resort to the other method. 

Senator Cullom. Which other method? 

Gen. Comstock. Works in the bed of the river—spurs, dikes, and 
revetments. 

The Chairman. Then you would have to build levees ? 

Gen. Comstock. Not necessarily. 

The Chairman. You would not build levees? 

Gen. Comstock. Under the law as it is now, I should not build 
levees, according to my idea of the effects of levees. Of course, I am 
a minority of the commission. The majority of the commission think 
the river can be improved by building levees. My own individual 
opinion is that levees are too expensive a way of improving the river 
to justify it under the law, and I am not sure that they would im¬ 
prove it at all. 

Senator Washburn. In some places the only improvement would 
be in levees. For instance, at Plum Point and Lake Providence 
Reach. 

Gen. Comstock. Our improvements are at Lake Providence Reach,, 
but the main works are in the river and are not levees. 

Senator Cullom. You do not believe in the levee system, as a 
matter of fact? 

Gen. Comstock. I believe in it implicitly. I think it is necessary 
to build them in order to take care of the country. I do not think 
the United States should put them there at their own expense for 
navigation purposes. 

Senator Cullom. But for the general good of the country, its de¬ 
velopment, etc., you believe in levees? 

Gen. Comstock. Of course I do. It always seemed to me that the 
Italian way was a fair one. On the important rivers they have 
adopted the principle that the people interested should pay the bills, 
and so the State assumes the cost to the extent of one-half and the 
Province assumes the cost of one-quarter, by taxation. Besides that 
they have associations of men called Consorzii, and these Consorzii 
pay the other one-fourth. So that the State pays one-half of the- 
whole amount. On the Mississippi River, as the thing actually 
works, the State and local authorities have been paying two-thirds 
since 1880 and the United States one-third. There have been 
$10,000,000 spent on the river since 1880, and of that amount the- 
United States paid one-third. 

Senator Washburn. Suppose the Government should appropriate 
the money to build levees the entire length of the river beyond Cairo,, 
of a width I think you agreed on, 3,600 feet. That is the general 
width to which you would contract the river. 

Gen. Comstock. In my judgment, the farther apart the levees the 
better. 

Senator Washburn. In many places the width is 3,600 feet. 

Gen. Comstock. That is low water. 


188 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

Senator Washburn. Assuming that that was done, are not there 
periods of time in the year when that length would not be sufficient 
to hold the water within the banks of the river ? 

Gen. Comstock. It depends upon how high you build the levees. 

Senator Washburn. At any reasonable height? 

Gen. Comstock. I think they are building them from 10 to 13 feet. 

Senator Washburn. What was the occasion of the breaks this 
spring below Red River? 

Gen. Comstock. This flood in the upper river, at Helena, for in¬ 
stance, appears to have been somewhat less than the flood of 1882. 
At Red River, from the information that Capt. Kingman gives me 
this morning, it would seem to be nearly equal to the flood of 1882. 
In 1882 about 600,000 cubic feet a second went from the Red River 
into the head of the Atchafalaya basin and escaped into the Mis¬ 
sissippi. Levees were built across the head of that basin subse¬ 
quently, and if they stood, of course they were going to force this 
600,000 feet, less what was allowed to "go down the Atchafalaya 
proper, down past New Orleans. The effect of keeping those levees 
intact is to throw a greater strain on the levees directly below Red 
River. 

I have not the definite data now at hand, and of course my opin¬ 
ion is not final, but I think these levees on the Atchafalaya broke 
sooner than on the Mississippi below Red River. I believe the levees 
at the head of Atchafalaya should let 600,000 cubic feet of water 
escape down there. In addition to that, I would raise the levees 
below Red River. 

Senator Washburn. Your answer to my question, then, would be 
that the river, if it were leveed the whole distance, would not carry 
the entire volume of water. 

Gen. Comstock. Oh, yes. 

Senator Washburn. But you would relieve it by opening up the 
Atchafalaya ? 

Gen. Comstock. That would be the way. 

The Chairman. If there were money enough there would be no 
difficulty in putting them at a height that would raise the river ? 

Gen. Comstock. I think not. 

The Chairman. Have you compared the overflows on the Mis¬ 
sissippi River during the iast 15 or 20 years with this last one? 

Gen. Comstock. Our data of the overflows are very meager, except 
with reference to the flood of 1882, which was a great one. All the 
data are not in. I have not received them as yet in reference to this 
present flood. As I said before, at Helena the maximum flow ap¬ 
pears to be two hundred or three hundred thousand cubic feet a sec¬ 
ond less than in 1882. At Red River it was about equal to that of 
1882. Both of these were great flood years. 

The Chairman. Do you know how the country inundated appeared 
in 1882 as compared with that country this year? 

Gen. Comstock. There was no comparison whatever. At that time 
the levees were broken from Cairo down to Bonnet Carre. The 
country was overflowed from Cairo to the Gulf, and the damage was 
greatly less in 1890 than it was in 1882. 

Senator Cullom. Now, for navigation purposes, have you any idea 
what amount of money would be necessary to be spent to make that 
river as good as it can be made ? 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 189 

(ren. Comstock. I have estimated it in the neighborhood of 
$75,000,000. 

Senator Cullom. For navigation purposes purely? 

Gen. Comstock. Yes, sir. 

Senator Cullom. Without reference to river interests? 

Gen. Comstock. Yes, sir. 

Senator Cullom. How much would it cost to levee it ? 

Gen. Comstock. There has been no estimate made of that at all. 

The Chairman. Suppose you built the levees at the same time, 
what would it cost? 

Gen. Comstock. So far as getting 10 feet of water, it might take 
off $10,000,000. ’ & 

The Chairman. It would take off $10,000,000? 

Gen. Comstock. The works on the bed of the river might cost 
$10,000,000 less if you made a perfect system of levees. 

The Chairman. How much does the perfect system of levees add? 

Gen. Comstock. There has been no estimate made of it. The com¬ 
mission made an estimate in 1884 and 1885, I think, of levees at a 
certain height, at $11,000,000. I think that is too small for a perfect 
system of levees. 

Senator Washburn. You say to build levees would diminish the 
amount already mentioned in improving the level of the river? 

Gen. Comstock. As I said before, I do not know whether levees 
would improve navigation. I said that the building of levees might 
make the navigation improvement cost $10,000,000 less, or $65,000,000, 
but I have no certainty that it would. 

Senator Cullom. Have you gone over the system that you would 
adopt if you had your own way with reference to the improvement 
of the river for navigation purposes? 

Gen. Comstock. Yes, sir. 

Senator Washburn. That is by making improvements in the bed 
of the river and not by building levees? 

Gen. Comstock. Yes, sir. 

Senator Washburn. The building of the levees the entire distance 
would not obviate the necessity of making these improvements in the 
bed of the river that you are now doing? 

Gen. Comstock. I think not. 

Senator Washburn. Now, the effect of relieving the river at the 
Atchafalaya has been good, as I understand you. 

Gen. Comstock. The effect of what? 

Senator Washburn. The effect on the Atchafalaya outlet by reliev¬ 
ing the Mississippi of, say, one-fourth of the discharge, the result 
has been good, has it not? 

Gen. Comstock. No. I can hardly say that the result has been 
good, because the levees broke in 1882. When that was entirely open 
the levees broke. 

Senator Washburn. You would relieve the river of so much 
water? 

Gen. Comstock. Yes, sir; but the amount that should be raised 
would be small in comparison with what would be necessary to bring 
the water down the main river. 

Senator W 7 ashburn. Would you recommend the closing entirely of 
the Atchafalaya outlet, assuming that you had money enough to 
build the levees high enough below? 

30573°—II. Pep. 300, 63-2, pt 2-13 


190 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVE1L 


Gen. Comstock. No; I do not think it would. It depends upon the 
country back there. 

Senator Gibson. As I understand it. the Atchafalaya is not. 
strictly speaking, an outlet of the Mississippi. It is both an outlet 
and an inlet. At certain times when the Tensas Valley Basin is full 
of water, and the Red River is full, it is an inlet into the Mississippi 
River; it empties into it. I suppose it is doing that now, and dur¬ 
ing the flood season it has been a tributary of the Mississippi River- - 
I mean the Red River has. But the function that the Atchafalaya 
performs is to take off water that otherwise would go into the river. 

Gen. Comstock. Yes, sir. 

Senator Gibson. From the Tensas Basin and from the Red River. 

Gen. Comstock. All of that would become part of the Mississippi 
River below it. 

Senator Gibson. Assuming that that is the case, why would not 
the opening of the Lake Borgne outlet have the same effect by reliev¬ 
ing the river by discharge ? 

Gen. Comstock. If you were to make an opening of the same size, 
the first question would be how low down you would have that opening. 

Senator Gibson. No; what von would call a high-water opening? 

Gen. Comstock. That is about the level of the banks. For that, 
purpose it would give some relief. But at Lake Borgne the rise and 
fall of the river is only something like 12 feet perhaps, so that if you 
stop your sills at 9 or 10 feet above low water it would require one a 
good many miles long, which would require expensive work. 

Senator Gibson. How deep an outlet could you have there without 
interfering with the river below: not to shoal up the river and affect 
navigation below? 

Gen. Comstock. It is possible you might take 100.000 feet a second. 
The flow has been about 1,100,000 feet a second. This year it has 
been more. You might take 100,000 without injuring the South Pass. 
I do not think you would gain enough by that experiment to balance 
the danger you run. 

Senator Gibson. How far is it from the point on the Mississippi 
River where it is proposed to make the Lake Borgne outlet to deep 
water ? 

Gen. Comstock. I do not recollect the distance exactly. I think 
it is something like CO or TO miles. From Lake Borgne to the Mis¬ 
sissippi Sound the water is from 10 to 12 feet to 20 feet deep, while 
the main river at Lake Borgne down to the head of the pass is prob¬ 
ably 100 feet deep. 

Senator Gibson. How far is it from Loke Borgne to deep water? 

Gen. Comstock. About 100 miles to the jetties. 

Senator Gibson. What would be the damage likely to be inflicted 
upon the city of New Orleans and upon the people in that vicinity by 
making an outlet into Lake Borgne? 

Gen. Comstock. It would raise the water there by a number of 
feet. 

Senator Gibson. Would not that necessitate the leveeing in of the 
whole rear of the city of New Orleans? 

Gen. Comstock. I think so. The dams would be overflowed and 
raise the water in Lake Borgne. 

Senator Gibson. You have spoken of the River Rhine and the 
River Po. Is not there a great deal of gravel in the River Rhine, 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


191 


and more gravel in the River Rhine than in the Mississippi River in 
proportion to size and the volume of water? 

Gen. Comstock. When you get down toward the boundary of 
Holland I think there is not much besides sand. As you go up it is 
possible that there is a little gravel there, as there is in the Mississippi 
River down as far as Profit Island. 

Senator Gibson. Have they not taken in vast tracts of country on 
the Rhine by shortening the river? 

Gen. Comstock. There has been a good deal of cut-off work done 
above the region of levees on the Baden frontier. 

Senator Gibson. If you were to construct this outlet at Lake 
Borgne, how far would you think it necessary to levee that outlet to 
prevent it from overflowing the whole country ? 

Gen. Comstock. You would have to levee it all around; I think all 
the way around Lake Borgne. 

Senator Gibson. How would you levee Lake Borgne ? 

Gen. Comstock. I consider that so foolish that I have not given it 
a thought. 

Senator Gibson. Would not the secondary effect of this outlet be to 
fill up that basin with sediment? 

Gen. Comstock. The velocity in Lake Borgne would at first be one- 
sixth of that which it is in the main river, and of course a large por¬ 
tion of the Mississippi sediment would drop into Lake Borgne. 

Senator Gibson. You have been down to the forts there, have you 
not? 

Gen. Comstock. Yes, sir. 

Senator Gibson. Do you know a place called Cubitts Gap? 

Gen. Comstock. Yes, sir. 

Senator Gibson. Was not that originally an outlet to the deep 
water of the Gulf—right above the Gulf on the right-hand side? 

Gen. Comstock. Yes, sir; on the left bank. 

Senator Gibson. It is on the right-hand side going down the river. 

Gen. Comstock. That is the Jump. 

Senator Gibson. What has been the effect of building these outlets? 

Gen. Comstock. The effect has been to build a bar. 

Senator Gibson. Has not the river really closed them up? 

Gen. Comstock. I think they are very much closed up. I have not 
seen a survey of them for many years. 

Senator Washburn. What is the distance from the Lake Borgne 
outlet, where you would start off from the Mississippi River, to the 
deep water of the Gulf: what would be the distance across there? 

Gen. Comstock. My recollection is it is something like 60 or TO 
miles. 

Senator Washburn. What is the distance from that same point to 
an outlet at the jetties? 

Gen. Comstock. About 110 miles. 

Senator Washburn. Then the current would be very much more 
rapid through the Lake Borgne outlet than it is in the Mississippi ? 

Gen. Comstock. No, sir. 

Senator Washburn. The fall would be much greater. 

Gen. Comstock. The fall would be greater in the ratio of 60 to 100*, 
but the velocity would not depend upon the fall alone. It depends 
just as much on the depth. You would nearly double the slope of 


192 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


the river, but the depth would be only one-tenth as much. The main 
river is 100 feet deep, and you would have to dig it out nearly to that 
depth to get as high velocity all the way to the sound as in the 
Mississippi. 

Senator Washburn. The result would be, in the first instance, to 
fill up Lake Borgne and to cut a main channel in there, so that the 
objections raised by the citizens of Louisiana would not come about. 

Gen. Comstock. I think that would be the result ultimately. Lake 
Borgne now is a very wide body of water. 

Senator Washburn. Not very deep. 

Gen. Comstock. No; but still its cross section is larger than that of 
the Mississippi, so that the velocity of the water flowing through it 
would be very much less than the Mississippi River. The process 
would be to shoal it up and form channels through it, and the velocity 
would be less. 

Senator Washburn. There would ultimately be a distinct channel 
through it? 

Gen. Comstock. Yes, sir. 

Senator Gibson. You said awhile ago that it would cost about 
$75,000,000 to complete the works on the Mississippi River. Have 
you ever made any estimate of what the cost would be of completing 
the works on the Atlantic seaboard, the improvement of the rivers and 
harbors ? 

Gen. Comstock. No, sir. 

Senator Gibson. Or on the Lakes? 

Gen. Comstock. No, sir. 

Senator Gibson. You said also that it would cost $10,000,000 less 
than $75,000,000 if we applied the levee system in conjunction w T ith 
the jetty system. 

Gen. Comstock. I mentioned that as possible to my mind; I really 
do not know. 

Senator Gibson. What benefit would it confer upon the people liv¬ 
ing on the banks of the river to have it leveed ? 

Gen. Comstock. The benefit would be enormous. 

Senator Gibson. Wliat area of territory would it bring into habita¬ 
tion ? 

Gen. Comstock. Some 30,000 square miles ; if the whole of it were 
cultivated. 

Senator Gibson. What effect would it have on the common car¬ 
riers, the railroad systems? 

Gen. Comstock. A very large effect. The effect of the levees on 
the Yazoo River has been very large during the last few years, both 
in the way of river transportation and railroads. 

Senator Cullom. You say there are levees now above the level of 
the valley along the river ? 

Gen. Comstock. They are not very much more than 3 or 4 feet 
high in some places. 

Senator Cijllom. How much of that country w r ould be so endan¬ 
gered as to drive the people away and destroy the crops, stock, etc. ? 

Gen. Comstock. That would depend very much upon whether the 
levee broke and discharged the water over it. Take the Yazoo 
district. There is a number of drainage streams running through 
it into which the water flows from the Mississippi, and they have 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 193 

built up ridges along their banks just as the Mississippi has, and 
when the flood comes the water is guided by those ridges and flows 
into the bottom. It is almost impossible to tell what damage is going 
to be done in a given place by a given break, except by one thoroughly 
familiar with the local topography. 

Senator Cullom. Can not people, property, stock, etc., be gotten 
onto high spots around there, so that they can secure themselves from 
danger? 

Gen. Comstock. Very often the levees are the only high spots. 

Senator Washburn. Is the topography of the country such that 
there is any point above the Atchafalaya where an outlet could be 
made and the water reach the Gulf? 

Gen. Comstock. I think not of any value at all. Mr. Cowdon has 
proposed an outlet into Bayou Bartholomew from the Arkansas 
River, which scheme I think is not good. 

Senator Washburn. Why so? 

Gen. Comstock. It is rather a small, narrow stream there. Sup¬ 
pose you take 100.000 feet of water out of the Arkansas River, I doubt 
if you could get it to run through that stream. I am not sure you 
could make a canal from the Arkansas River through to Bartholo¬ 
mew to carry even that amount except at enormous expense. 

Senator Washburn. During the past two or three years the levees 
have been closed. How has the low-water navigation been affected? 

Gen. Comstock. Affected by State works or by the works of the 
commission ? 

Senator Washburn. It has been affected by levees and not by jetty 
works, I understand; but where the river has been leveed, has the 
low-water navigation been improved by those levees? 

Gen. Comstock. That is a question which is something like asking 
about the rise in the bed of the river. You want a good many years 
to settle that question. The results to be effected would be the dis¬ 
appearance of the bars having less than 10 feet. I looked at that 
question some time ago with reference to the low waters of 1887, 
1888, and 1889, which were quite low-water years, and nearly as low 
as 1871 and 1872. There were a good many bars that showed them¬ 
selves in those years. Our record is not definite and precise enough 
to say that the bars have diminished. I do not know that except by 
the disappearance of the bars or by resurvey of the whole river. It 
can be shown that levees have improved the bars which give trouble 
to navigation. 

With reference to the rise in the river bed. Col. Ernst has given 
me some averages for a period of years. There are a number of 
points, taking the mean low water, that indicate that the low water 
has not risen. 

Mr. Cowdon. It has been stated that the Jump shoaled itself up 
to 4 feet at its intersection with the Mississippi River, and that was 
given as evidence why the Lake Borgne outlet was closed. I want 
some gentleman to look at this chart and see if that is correct. Some 
Senator get up and look at this map. 

Gen. Comstock. I doubt if I gave that testimony as to being only 
4 feet. I will say, speaking from recollection, that while the jetties 
were being built I went in there one day and was told it was filling 


194 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

up rapidly, and that there was great difficulty in getting a steamboat 
about in there. 

Senator Washburn. How late an edition is this map? 

Mr. Cowdon. The first date was in 1872. and it was revised in 
1884 and 1885. 

Gen. Comstock. I would say that it is difficult to tell on that map 
when the survey was made. 

Mr. Cowdon. The map was made two years after the survey was 

made. 

Gen. Comstock. It was made in 1887, but the survey may have 
been made 10 years before. It is a Government map. 

Mr. Cowdon. That report was made in 1880. I went there and 
got the proofs. I measured it and found 56 feet of water. 

Gen. Comstock. How far did you go down ? 

Mr. Cowdon. I went down about three-quarters of a mile. 

Statement of Lieut. Col. Charles R. Suter. 

Lieut. Col. Charles R. Suter, United States Army, a member of 
the Mississippi River Commission, appeared before the committee. 

The Chairman. How long have you been connected with the 
Mississippi River? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. About 24 years. 

Senator Cullom. Are you a civilian? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. No, sir; I am an officer of the Engineer Corps, 
United States Army. 

The Chairman. Just make a general statement, as Gen. Com¬ 
stock did, in relation to the Mississippi River, its improvement, etc. 

Lieut. Col. Suter. I presume you refer more particularly to the 
work of the Mississippi River Commission. 

The Chairman. Yes, sir. 

Lieut. Col. Suter. The commission was organized in 1879. The 
first report that the commission submitted in accordance with the 
law organizing it considered various plans that had been presented 
at various times for improving the Mississippi River. They were 
defined in the bill as the outlet plan, the levee plan, and what was 
called the jetty plan. The commission reported upon all three plans 
and then made their recommendation as to what they proposed. 

The so-called outlet plan was condemned in toto. The plan of 
improving the navigation by levees alone was not adopted by the 
commission. 

Of course as a protection against overflow they were unanimously 
favored by the commission. The closure of the then existing gaps 
was recommended, as it was considered that the levee system would 
form an important auxiliary in channel improvement when taken 
in connection with the other work which was recommended. The 
commission were of the opinion that an approximately uniform 
regimen of the river should be aimed at and that the control over the 
river should extend through all its stages, including high water, 
which of course brings in the levees as a factor in the channel im¬ 
provement. I will state that when I speak of a uniform regimen of 
the river I mean that the object is to introduce as nearly as possible 
similar conditions throughout, so that there will be no abrupt changes 
in its main features. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI KIVER. 195 

The river in its present state varies from 2,000 feet to over 10,000 
feet in width, with corresponding variations in velocity and every¬ 
thing connected with it. The idea was to bring it into something 
like uniformity. Of course it was not considered advisable that 
the minimum width should be taken as the standard. The minimum 
width I think is 2,000 feet. It is not considered necessary to go 
that far, but the commission found on investigation from such sur¬ 
veys as were available that a width at low water of about 3,000 feet 
would give sufficient depth for all navigable purposes, and the plan 
formulated was to reduce the river to this width at low water by 
proper contraction works. The kind of contraction works proposed 
were what may be denominated silt-catching works. They consist 
of systems or combinations of dikes made of piles and carrying 
brush screens so designed as to check the current over certain selected 
portions of the river bed and induce there deposits of silt, so that 
ultimately the river may rectify itself by reclaiming those portions 
of the bed which are not needed for the navigable channel and build¬ 
ing up new banks. Eventually these shoals become the training dikes 
just as ordinary dikes do on rivers of the usual character. It is a 
system of improvement only possible on a sediment-bearing stream. 

The second feature of the proposed plan was the revetment of 
banks where exposed to erosion, the idea of course being to make 
the current act on the bottom instead of the banks, in order to deepen 
the channel. 

These two constitute the main elements of the channel improve¬ 
ment in the bed of the river; that is, permeable dikes to induce de¬ 
posits and revetments to hold the banks and keep the river in place. 
The maintenance of levees on the top of the banks was thought by 
the commission to subserve two purposes. In some places there is 
very little question that the navigation of the river has been seriously 
deteriorated by the existence of breaks in the levee. That, of course, 
is especially manifest in those portions of the river that have been 
leveed for a long time; that is, where the system of levees has been 
kept up for a great many years. 

It has been found by measurement that below extensive gaps in 
levees there is a very decided deterioration in the channel, and the 
commission were of the opinion that this deterioration is due to 
the existence of these gaps; hence their inference was that if those 
gaps in the levees were closed the deposits formed under the in¬ 
fluence of the crevasses would be swept away and the channel of 
the river correspondingly improved and deepened. Furthermore, 
levees were deemed essential, both for the safety of the works in the 
bed of the river and to maintain the regimen at those places where 
it was already good. The only Avay to obtain uniformity of regi¬ 
men or to keep it when obtained is to control the entire discharge 
of the river, which of course means the control of the floods as w r ell 
as low stages. At the period of flood discharge you have an enor¬ 
mous volume of water, capable of almost any amount of mischief; 
at that period the cut-offs are formed and all sorts of accidents of 
that kind occur, all of which tend to upset the uniform regimen you 
are endeavoring to get. 

From this point of view the function of the levee system may 
be considered as conservative; its other function confers a direct 


19G FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

benefit. The plan of the commission contemplated both of these 
functions and these three factors; that is, the channel contraction 
works, the revetment of the banks, and the levees on the top of the 
banks constitute the plan on which the commission has worked from 
that day to this. 

The Chairman. If you were regarding the navigation of the 
Mississippi River alone, and forgetting for the time being the land- 
owners up and down the Mississippi River, would you adopt the 
levee system in conjunction with the system which you did adopt 
at certain reaches there in order to make the river navigable ? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. Would you take both of them? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. Then you differ from Gen. Comstock in that 
respect ? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. What have you to say in relation to the assertion 
that the bottom of the river has been rising ? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. I do not think there is the slightest evidence 
of it. 

Senator Gibson. You have stated the plan adopted by the com¬ 
mission. Will you now state the results achieved by the execution 
of that plan ? 

The Chairman. Gen. Comstock has stated that fully. 

Senator Gibson. Gen. Comstock has been practically in charge 
of it? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Yes, sir. 

Senator Washburn. Have the plans you have carried out fully 
met your expectation ? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. They have; they have certainly met mine. 

The Chairman. Your judgment is now that you would continue 
the same process you have been going through with since you have 
been on the commission, in order to improve the navigation of the 
river ? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. Capt. Leathers has been on the Mississippi River 
since 1836, and he says that the navigation of the river is not so 
easy to-day as it was in 1836, when he first went on. 

Lieut. Col. Suter. I do not know anything about 1836. That is 
rather before my time. 

The Chairman. Has there been any improvement in the naviga¬ 
tion of the Mississippi since you have been on it? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. There certainly has been where the commission 
has been at work. That is the only thing upon which I can give 
you any definite evidence. I know that at Plum Point and Lake 
Providence, which are the only places where the commission has done 
work of any consequence, the low-water depth has been more than 
doubled. 

The Chairman. Those two reaches? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Yes, sir; over those portions of them where the 
work has been carried on. 

The Chairman. What is your opinion of this Lake Borgne outlet? 


FLOODS.AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 197 

Lieut. Col. Suter. I have not changed my opinion about it at all 
since the first report of the commission was made. I think it is a 
perfect piece of foolishness. 

The Chairman. Why? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Because, in the first place, it would do no good, 
and in the second place, I feel very confident that it would do a 
great deal of harm. In the third place, I do not think it could be 
maintained even if it was once opened. 

Senator Washburn. You said it would do no good. If you re¬ 
lieve the river of a large amount of water it would do good at very 
high water, would it not ? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. No, sir; I do not think so. I have very great 
doubts about it. When it was first opened it might, but in a very 
few years this relief would disappear entirely. I think the flood 
heights above the outlet would ultimately increase. 

Senator Sawyer. If you were to build a dam there when it got 
up to that surplus water it would not only relieve the water, but the 
country. 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Wherever you divide the channel you must have 
an increased head to carry the water through the two branches. That 
is, the smaller river has the higher slope. 

Senator Sawyer. You would not interfere with the water in the 
ordinary stage? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. You would at high water. 

Senator Sawyer. Use it as a waste way to get rid of that surplus 
water. 

Lieut. Col. Suter. I think at that stage I would raise the levee 
beyond what the water would have been if the waste had not been 
there. 

Senator Sawyer. Of course, if you did not have it so that it 
would wash out; if you did not get it down to solid foundation to 
back out the water, 1 do not think it would overflow when the river 
got to a certain size. 

Senator Washburn. If you give a capacity of discharge of 100,000 
cubic feet of water a second additional to the present capacity, I 
do not see how you would raise the water below. 

. Lieut. Col. Suter. I did not say “below”; I said “above.” It has 
been known, ever since hydraulic laws have been formulated, that if 
you have a stream of a given capacity and divide it, you must have 
a steeper slope to carry the water off than you had when it was one 
stream. That can only be done by raising the water surface above 
the point of division. 

Senator Gibson. That is, the velocity is checked above? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. The velocity is checked by the increased resist¬ 
ance in the two branches, and you must have an increased head to 
force the water through. 

Senator Dolph. The Mississippi carries a great deal of sediment? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Yes, sir. 

Senator Dolpit. I understood you to say that the process adopted 
for the improvement of the river is to narrow the river at its widest 
places by constructing dikes which will cause the shallow parts of the 
river on each side to fill up and narrow the channel. 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Yes, sir. 


198 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


Senator Dolph. Is it possible to carry all the sediment down the 
whole length of the river and deposit it? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Yes, sir; I do not think it would make any 
difference. At present the Mississippi has to carry not only the sedi¬ 
ment brought in from other streams, such as the Missouri, but also 
that from its own banks. This latter supply would be cut off if the 
banks were protected as contemplated in the plans of the commission. 

Senator Dolph. Under the natural state of the river those widest 
places afford easy places for sediment, where the velocity of the cur¬ 
rent is somewhat impeded ? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. At some places it deposits, and it scours out at 
others. I do not think there is much permanent deposition. 

Senator Cullom. Along the line of the river? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Yes, sir. 

Senator Dolph. Is there much sediment carried out when there are 
breaks ? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Very little. You see the heavy sediment is near 
the bottom. 

Senator Gibson. What is the depth of the sedimentary stream near 
the bottom of the river? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. I do not know. I only know that the sediment 
increases as you go down. There is no way in which it can possibly 
be ascertained how deep down the movement of sediment actually 
goes on. There is, however, very good reason for believing that a 
considerable portion of the bed of the river is in motion all the time. 

Senator Dolph. If your plan is successful in narrowing the river 
and raising its banks, it will remove the sediment and cause it to go 
through the river into the Gulf? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Yes, sir. 

Senator Dolph. If it is not sufficient to carry the sediment to the 
Gulf, it must be deposited, then, into the channel of the river and 
have a tendency to fill up the bed of the river? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. If the current were not sufficiently strong to 
carry it forward, I think it would, but this is not likely to be the case. 

Senator Washburn. According to your theory it would be desir¬ 
able to close the Atchafalaya outlet, would it not ? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. As an outlet; yes. That is to prevent the Mis¬ 
sissippi from going into it. 

Senator Washburn. That would raise the water above it. 

Lieut. Col. Suter. I do not think it would do so permanently, 
although that would probably be the first effect. 

Senator Washburn. I understood Gen. Comstock to state that he 
thought it was well to maintain the Atchafalaya outlet. 

Lieut. Col. Suter. That is his opinion, not mine. 

The Chairman. You take a cross section of the river, 1,000 feet 
wide and 15 feet deep, have you any opinion what the weight of that 
cross section would be a foot wide ? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. I do not think I understand your question. 

The Chairman. Suppose the whole weight of water is so much a 
square inch or a square foot, and the whole weight of that water is 
pressing down over the whole cross section- 

Lieut. Col. Sitter. The depth of water, of course, will determine 
the pressure. 



FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER.. 199 

The Chairman. It must be enormous in a river 1 mile wide and 20 
feet deep. 

Lieut. Col. Suter. The pressure at any point varies according to 
the depth of the water. If the water is 15 feet deep there will be 
about 900 pounds pressure on each square foot of the bottom. 

The Chairman. Of course, the weight is downward? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. With that enormous pressure downward on the 
bottom of this river, and the current going a mile an hour, which is 
acting on the bottom all the time, it will act as a scraper and take the 
sediment along with it ? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. The movement of the bottom depends entirely 
on the velocity of the current. 

The Chairman. A slow current would move it just as a swift one; 
not so rapidly, but to the same depth ? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. That depends upon the weight of the material 
on the bottom. Very light material will be moved by a current of 
small velocity. If you have coarse sand or gravel it takes a very 
much stronger current to move it. 

Senator Gibson. You made observations on the river some time 
ago. I think, to ascertain the velocity of the current when the river 
was at its highest stages and yet held within its banks. You deter¬ 
mined that the flood, when held in the banks of the river, would take 
just 10 days to go from Cairo to New Orleans. 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Some such figure as that. I do not remember 
exactly. The general idea was that where crevasses took place the 
velocity was checked and the movement of the flood wave was re¬ 
tarded. 

Senator Gibson. You determined from your observation that it 
took just 10 days for a flood contained within the river to go from 
Cairo to the Gulf, and that when it passed over the banks of the 
river it took 100 days. 

Lieut. Col. Suter. It took a very much longer period than when 
inside its banks. 

Senator Gibson. Does not that involve the whole question of the 
Mississippi River? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Very largely. 

Senator Gibson. With regard to the question of passing flood 
waters off, if those breaks in the levees had not occurred there is 
every reason to suppose that the velocity would have been obtained 
and the whole water would have passed off at a much lower level. 

Lieut. Col. Suter. This retardation of velocity has a tendency to 
increase the flood height. The water behind keeps piling up on that 
in front until you get 4 or 5 feet of abnormal elevation. 

Senator Gibson. Have you ever looked at the tables showing the 
discharge of water at Columbus and Carrollton and possibly at some 
other points furnished by Humphreys and Abbot ? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. I have seen them. 

Senator Gibson. They report that when the river is at a depth of 
86 feet at Carrollton and it should rise only 6 feet more, which 
would make it 92.6 feet, that the volume of discharge of the river is 
doubled. 


200 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


Lieut. Col. Suter. I think our observations show fully that much 
if not more. 

Senator Gibson. Now, then, by confining the water to the channel 
of the river by levees so that at that point only 6 feet of water should 
be contained in the levees—the levees should be built so as to hold this 
amount of water in the river—this amount of water in the river 
would be the equivalent to making another Mississippi River on the 
top of the river when it is 86 feet deep. 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Something like that. 

Senator Gibson. Eighty-six and six-tenths feet deep. 

Lieut. Col. Suter. That would be the case at New Orleans. 

Senator Gibson. That shows, therefore, that it is a question of 
velocity. 

Lieut. Col. Suter. T think it is entirely a question of velocity. 
If you can make that water run faster von can safely pass off the 
largest flood that ever came into the river. Anything that tends to 
retard velocity tends to increase the height of the water surface. 

Senator Gibson. If that is the law of the river, you take the flood 
when it reaches Cairo, and instead of being confined in the river and 
passing on to the Gulf at the rapid rate of 10 days, therefore dimin¬ 
ishing the surface of the river, it fills the St. Francis Basin, does 
it not? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Yes, sir. 

Senator Gibson. There is a vast accumulation of water stored 
there, the velocity is interrupted, retarded, the height increases by 
this retardation of the river itself; then with the accumulated force 
of this vast amount of water accumulated in the basin of the St. 
Francis, that accumulation is precipitated on the river below, is it 
not? 

Lieut. Col. Sitter. Yes, sir; it comes out and returns to the Mis¬ 
sissippi while it is still high. 

Senator Gibson. That is a flood on top of a flood caused by this 
retardation, because the law of velocity has been suspended. It is 
like accumulating a great body of troops to make an assault. It 
increases the height of the river at the point of attack on the levees 
below. Now, is not that the reason why the levees gave away on 
the upper line of the Mississippi, in the State of Mississippi and on 
the lower line of the Arkansas, this concentration which was fur¬ 
nished by the St. Francis Basin? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. I have not yet had an opportunity to sufficiently 
study the records of this flood; we have not got them yet and I do 
not feel able to discuss the subject intelligently. There are gentle¬ 
men present who are more familiar with the facts who can doubtless 
answer that question. 

Senator Gibson. I am not asking you with reference to the facts, 
but with reference to the theory. 

Lieut. Col. Suter. I was going to say that according to my no¬ 
tion—I may be mistaken—I think that the great heights that were 
obtained in the lower part of the river were due to the southern 
tributaries. They had most unusual floods. What you were sayirg, 
however, is undoubtedly true. I think there is very little question 
that the great flood heights obtained at Helena are higher than they 
would have been if the water had all passed down the main channel. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 201 

I think the water that is drawn off into the St. Francis Basin and 
then returned at Helena will give a greater height at Helena than 
it that water were to pass down the main channel. The same phe¬ 
nomenon occurs at Vicksburg and possibly at other places. 

Senator Gibson. The same at Bed River at the foot of Tensas 
Basin? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Exactly. 

Senator Gibson. I believe you and Gen. Comstock are not entirely 
agreed on all matters pertaining to the conduct of the work of the 
Mississippi River, as I understand you. Hoes that disagreement 
involve you in any way in carrying on the work with the execution 
of which you have been charged ? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. No, sir. 

Senator Cullom. You are acting under the statute without ref¬ 
erence to what you believe? 

Senator Gibson. You all agree on the plan? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. The commission does. 

Senator Cullom. You mean a majority of the commission? 

Senator Gibson. I understand that Gen. Comstock approved the 
plans, but he did not do so for the same purpose. 

The Chairman. Not for navigation purposes? He does not ap¬ 
prove the plans for navigation purposes ? 

Senator Gibson. He said that it would cost $10,000,000 less to 
use the levees in connection with the improvement of the river for 
navigation purposes than it would cost without them. 

The Chairman. He thought it might cost $10,000,000 less. 

(At 12 o’clock m. the committee took a recess until 2 o’clock p. m. 

At the expiration of the recess the committee resumed its session.) 

Statement of Lieut. Col. Charles R. Suter— Continued. 

The Chairman. Capt. Condon has handed me some questions 
which he desires should be propounded to you. Would you levee, 
dyke, spur-dam, etc., the upper end of a sediment-bearing stream 
before you would improve the lower end of such stream ? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. I do not know what is meant by “ improve ” 
in that question. There are different ways of improvement. 

The Chairman. Well, wdiat do you say in answer to his question? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Unless I understand it better than I now do, 
I can hardly answer it. 

The Chairman. Then take it the other way. Would you improve 
the upper end of a sediment-btVaring stream before you did the lower? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. If it needed it more; yes. 

The Chairman. Will water flow down an angle or incline of 2 
inches to the mile faster than it will flow down an incline of 1 inch 
to the mile? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. That depends on the depth. 

The Chairman. Is the fall greater per mile at Cairo than at New 
Orleans ? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. Is the current greater at Cairo than at New 
Orleans ? 


202 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


Lieut. Col. Sitter. I think the difference is very slight. I do not re¬ 
member the exact figures. 

The Chairman. Does not the greater current above bring the mud 
down faster than the slower current at the lower end can discharge it. 

Lieut. Col. Suter. I do not think there is a slower current at the 
lower end. 

The Chairman. Suppose the current was faster above. 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Then it would, undoubtedly; but I do not think 
such is the case. 

The Chairman. If you build levees higher at the lower end than at 
the upper end, does that increase or decrease the angle of fall ? 

Lieut; Col. Suter. It most likely would have nothing to do with it. 

The Chairman. It is claimed that the inflow of water is 2,100,000 
cubic feet per second and that the overflow of water at the mouths of 
the Mississippi is 1,100,000 cubic feet per secondand if this be true, 
will you explain how you would prevent overflows? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. By raising the levees sufficiently. 

The Chairman. Is the South Pass in any sense an outlet of the 
Mississippi ? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. It is one of the mouths. Any outlet can be con¬ 
sidered as a mouth. I suppose the mouth could be considered an 
outlet. 

The Chairman. Are the mouths of the Mississippi in any sense 
outlets ? 

Lieut. Col. Suiter. I think they are. 

The Chairman. If you wanted to get the flood water of the Missis¬ 
sippi into the Gulf of Mexico quicker than it would now flow through 
the present mouths, would you close up all of the present mouths or 
would you open more outlets? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. I certainly should not open more. Whether I 
would close the others or not is a question I have never particularly 
considered. Our jurisdiction stops at the Head of the Passes, so that 
I have not considered it. 

The Chairman. If it were possible to make the Lake Borgne outlet 
wide enough and deep enough to lower the flood line of the Missis¬ 
sippi River at that place down to Gulf level, would that enormous 
outflow of flood water increase or decrease the current of the Mis¬ 
sissippi River? 

Lieut. Col. Sitter. What do you mean, decrease it where: above 
or below? 

The Chairman. The question does not state which. 

Lieut. Col. Suter. That is a very important question. 

The Chairman. Take it both ways. 

Lieut. Col. Suter. It would certainly decrease it below. 

The Chairman. What would be the effect above? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. First a great increase; eventually I do not think 
there would be any. 

The Chairman. Have you stated what your opinion is of what is 
called the outlet system? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Yes, sir; I believe I have. 

Senator Gibson. Have you stated the result of the improvement 
at Plum Point and Lake Providence Reach in relation to navigation? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. I think not. 

Senator Gibson. What have been the results? 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 203 

Lieut. Col. Suter. The low-water depths have been about doubled. 

Senator Gibson. Do you know what effect the levees have had on 
the navigation anywhere? 

Lieut, Col. Suter. Yes, sir; I think they have had a very decided 
effect at Lake Providence, and also to a certain extent at Plum Point. 
At Plum Point the levees have been constructed by the commission 
purely and entirely to improve navigation. They are local levees, on 
both banks of the river, and the effects have been very marked. 

Senator Gibson. You stated a moment ago in reply to a question 
by the chairman that if you were improving the Mississippi River, 
even if it were running through a wilderness, if the country through 
which it ran was not peopled, you would still build levees on the 
banks. 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Yes, sir. 

Senator Gibson. Why do you hold that opinion? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Because I consider that the improvement of the 
stream for navigable purposes; without it is impossible. 

The Chairman. Why? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. I think you have got to retain control over the 
whole volume of water. The discharge which passes within the 
banks is less than half of the flood discharge of the river, and the 
low-water discharge is only about one-tenth of that which passes 
within the banks—about one-twentieth of the total discharge—and 
any works that you can put in to control the low-water flow on a 
stream like the Mississippi are liable to be utterly destroyed and 
rendered nugatory by this vastly larger volume of water which passes 
down the river during flood stages. At this season of the year the 
cut-offs occur, which will upset any plan of improvement, because 
they change entirely the regimen of the river, its course, its slopes, 
and everything about it. 

Again, the water being over the works and everything else, has a 
chance to develop new channels precisely where you do not want 
them to occur. A still further effect is produced where the levees 
are down; the water that goes over the banks keeps going out and 
coming back again. Whenever it makes its appearance in the river 
it acts like a tributary. It produces entirely new phases, just as 
any tributary will. Sometimes it entirely reverses the conditions of 
flow. The influence that levees exert under these heads I believe 
I have stated as conservative. They prevent the river from doing 
damage to the works we put in to improve the low-water discharge 
of the stream. 

The Chairman. If there was no question about protecting the 
land, and you were simply improving the Mississippi River for navi¬ 
gation, would you have built the levees that are now built? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. You say you would? 

Lieut. Col. Suter. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. So that, regardless of the question of the land- 
owners, you say that this commission has done none too much toward 
levee building? 

Lieut, Col. Suter. That is my opinion. 

The Chairman. Do you not think the people whose lands are pre¬ 
served by these levees should pay a part of the expense of construct¬ 
ing them ? 


204 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

Lieut. Col. Stjter. That is hardly an engineering question. I 
think, however, the same question might be asked with regard to 
other improvements. For instance, one of the most important fea¬ 
tures of the work of the commission is the protection of the banks 
from caving. In doing that we do it entirely in the interest of navi¬ 
gation, but it does at the same time prevent many a man’s plantation 
from caving into the river. 

The Chairman. In other words, you think the levee is a part of 
your system as well as the jetties? 

Lieut. Col. Stjter. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. You mean to say that these dikes and levees are 
necessary to preserve the channel of the river itself ? 

Lieut. Col. Stjter. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. The permanency of the channel ? 

Lieut. Col. Stjter. Yes, sir; that is my view. 

The Chairman. IIow long did you say you had been on the river? 

Lieut. Col. Stjter. Since 1866. 

Statement of Cart. Smith S. Leach. 

Capt. Smith S. Leach, United States Engineers, in charge of first 
and second districts of the Mississippi River, appeared before the 
committee. 

The Chairman. How long an acquaintance have you had with the 
Mississippi River? 

Capt. Leach. Since 1878. 

The Chairman. Are you a member of the commission ? 

Capt. Leach. Yes, sir; I am a subordinate officer of the com¬ 
mission. 

The Chairman. Where are you located? 

Capt. Leach. At Memphis. 

The Chairman. State what your experience with the river has 
been. 

Capt. Leach. In the summer of 1878 the board of engineers was 
organized which was referred to here by Gen. Comstock and others. 
I was then second lieutenant of Engineers and was assigned to duty 
as recorder of that board. That board undertook extensive surveys, 
examinations, hydrometric measurements, etc. The field work of a 
large part and the computations of all of these were placed in my 
immediate charge. I began from that time to study this question 
from the original data and measurements made upon the stream it¬ 
self, and I have done nothing else professionally from that day to 
this. 

The Chairman. Have you observed the overflows of the river? 

Capt. Leach. Repeatedly. I have been over the river in its whole 
length and at almost every stage of water. 

The Chairman. State to the committee, as briefly as you can, your 
idea of the improvement of the Mississippi River for navigation. 

Capt. Leacii. To start with what should not be done, I would men¬ 
tion the project of taking off any portion of the water of the natural 
discharge of the river at any stage whatever or for any purpose or 
at any point. The salient point in connection with that topic is, 
first, the question of the effect upon the channel of the river above 
and below resulting from taking off such water under such circum- 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 205 

stances. I have here a complete map of the Delta of the Mississippi 
showing its approaches to the Gulf. I may state a fact which I do 
not think will be denied by anyone, that this single-trunk channel as 
it approaches the Head of the Passes is one of the finest navigable 
flowing streams on the face of the earth. It is of reasonable width, 
very deep, and has at all times a regular and moderate current. At 
a point here [indicating on map] it is divided into three principal 
branches. Each one of those branches is narrower and shallower and 
more irregular in its regimen than is the main stream. This is the 
Head of the Passes [indicating on map]. 

At this point, where this main stream is divided into three branches, 
the phenomenon is presented of a large and deep and good chan¬ 
nel being transformed into three narrow and shallow and poor 
channels. A great deal of talk has been heard about the difficulty 
that Capt. Eads had in removing the bar at the mouth of South 
Pass bar. If he were here to-day, he would confess a much more 
serious difficulty in dealing with the shoal water at the head of that 
pass. This is the bar that gave him the real difficulty [indicating on 
map]. This is the bar at the Head of the Passes at the point of 
diffusion, at this point division of the main stream. It was to get a 
greater depth over this bar at the head of South Pass that he laid a 
sill over the other two passes and constructed the funnel-shaped 
prolongations of the natural banks of this pass in order to augment 
the flow of water through there. 

We have these three passes, each having a bar at each end, and 
each being 30 feet average depth between the bars in its original 
and natural condition, as against 125 or 130 feet depth of the main 
stream. Here is the South Pass [indicating on map]. This is the 
one that has the great depth. This is the one that carries from 26 
to 30 feet. This Southwest Pass carries less than that, perhaps 16 
feet. 

Now, the point I make is this: This phenomenon occurs here 
[indicating on map]. It occurs at the corresponding point on every 
known alluvial sedimentary stream on the face of the earth that 
branches into a delta formation. 

Now, if the degradation of these subsidiary channels occurs here 
when the stream divides into three parts, why will it not occur at 
Lake Borgne if you there divide it into two? The fact can be 
explained on no other hypothesis than that in division there is weak¬ 
ness, a proverb more familiar in the inverse terms “ In union there is 
strength.” I never heard any other advanced for it, and its con¬ 
verse, which the outlet theory demands for its support, is not only 
absurd on its face, but contradicts every fact of the river’s life which 
has come to my knowledge. Anything further on the subject of out¬ 
lets is only an elaboration of that general statement. To substantiate 
that, if proof should be necessary, there are frequent observations in 
the bed of the river itself. These consist of a large number of exact 
measurements, as precise and accurate for that purpose as would 
be any measurement that could be made of the length of this Capitol 
Building. We have not guessed at this thing; we have measured it, 
and we had no theory to establish when we made the measurement, 
but we made the measurement for the purpose of finding out the 
theory. 

30573°—H. Rep. 300. 63-2. pt 2-14 


206 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


The measurements have shown conclusively in repeated instances 
that when a crevasse occurs the channel for a few miles immediately 
below becomes distinctly smaller. When that crevasse is closed, meas¬ 
urements made before and after the closure have shown that this 
loss in the area of the channel is recovered. When a crevasse is closed 
and immediately after that closure—let me change the form of that 
statement—when a crevasse opens and immediately after that open¬ 
ing by exact measurement there is found to be a deterioration of the 
channel of about 12 per cent of its area, and again when this same 
crevasse is closed after the next succeeding flood there is found to 
be a recovery of this 12 per cent lost, I do not think any other 
hypothesis will explain it. 

Second in importance will be the deterioration of the navigable 
depth in this channel, which is now an extraordinarily good one, and 
which can be maintained there, as the experience of the last 10 years 
has shown, at a very trifling expense. If that channel were injured 
and deteriorated by the natural and inevitable result of taking off a 
large portion of the flood discharge at a point higher up the river, 
you would then, instead of having little or no expense to keep it 
open, have an enormous annual expense, and even then the condition 
of the channel would be so precarious that the effect on commerce 
would be very detrimental. Ships will go to a port where they know 
they will find 26 feet of water, without doubt, more readily than they 
would go to a port where they were promised 30 feet and might find 
but 20 feet. A reliable 26-foot channel is better than a precarious 
30-foot channel. 

The Chairman. You are familiar with the methods of the Missis¬ 
sippi Commission as to improvements ? 

Capt. Leach. Will you bear with me a little further on this topic ? 

The Chairman. Yes, sir. 

Capt. Leach. The question has been discussed over and over again 
as regards the elevation of the bed of the river as the result of the 
construction of levees, and also as to the deterioration of the channel 
below the outlet. I know of no engineering authority that can be 
quoted in support of this view, except by garbling, and as you have 
had a little garbling already before you I would like to read some 
full and complete extracts. I have before me the report of Col. Ellet. 
I would like to read a few extracts from it; it will take but a moment. 
I will read the introduction pretty much in extenso. 

The Chairman. When was that report made? 

Capt. Leach. 1850. It is a report, and the only one I know of, 
where an engineer of any standing has deliberately and definitely 
proposed to make a certain definite outlet. 

In this paper the causes of the more frequent and more extensive overflows 
of the Delta of the Mississippi in recent than in former times are considered, 
and plans suggested for the mitigation of the evil. 

The great frequency and more alarming character of the floods are at¬ 
tributed— 

Primarily, to the extension of cultivation throughout the Mississippi Valley, 
by which the evaporation is thought to be in the aggregate diminished, the 
drainage obviously increased, and the floods hurried forward more rapidly into 
the country below. 

Secondly, to the extension of the levees along the borders of the Mississippi, 
and of its tributaries and outlets, by means of which the water that was for¬ 
merly allowed to spread over many thousand square miles of lowlands is becom¬ 
ing more and more confined to the immediate channel of the river, and is. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


207 


theiefoie, compelled to rise higher and flow faster, until, under the increased 
powei of the current, it may have time to excavate a wider and deeper trench 
to give vent to the increased volume which it conveys. 

Thirdly, to cut-offs, natural and artificial, by which the distance traversed 
by the stream is shortened, its slope and velocity increased, and the water con¬ 
sequently brought down more rapidly from the country above, and precipitated 
more rapidly upon the country below. 

Fourthly, to the gradual progress of the Delta into the sea, by which the 
course of the river at its embouchure is lengthened, the slope and velocity there 
are diminished and the water consequently thrown back upon the lands' above. 

It is shown that each of these causes is likely to be progressive, and that the 
future floods throughout the length and breadth of the Delta and along the 
great streams tributary to the Mississippi are destined to rise higher and higher 
as society spreads over the upper States, as population adjacent the river in¬ 
creases, and the inundated lowlands appreciate in value. 

For the prevention of the increasing dangers growing out of these several 
cooperative causes six distinct plans are discussed and advocated: 

First. Better, higher, and stronger levees in lower Louisiana, and more 
efficient surveillance—a local measure, but one requiring State legislation and 
official execution and discipline. 

Second. The prevention of additional cut-offs; a restraint which may call for 
national legislation, or possibly judicial interference to prohibit the States and 
individuals above from deluging the country below. 

Third. The formation of an outlet of the greatest attainable capacity from 
the Mississippi to the head of Lake Borgne, with a view, if possible, to convert 
it ultimately into the main channel of the river. 

Fourth. The enlargement of the Bayou Plaquemine, for the purpose of giving 
relief to that part of the coast which now suffers most from the floods, viz, 
to the borders of the Mississippi from above Baton Rouge to New Orleans. 

Fifth. The enlargement of the channel of the Atchnfalaya for the purpose of 
extending relief higher up the coast, and conveying to the sea, by an independent 
passage, the discharge from Red River and the Washita. 

Sixth. The creation of great artificial reservoirs and the increase of the 
capacity of the lakes on the distant tributaries by placing dams across their 
outlets with apertures sufficient for their uniform discharge, so as to retain a 
portion of the water above until the floods have subsided below. It is proposed 
by this process to compensate in some degree for the loss of those natural reser¬ 
voirs which have been and are yet to be destroyed by the levees, and, at the 
same time and by the same expedient, improve the navigation of all the great 
tributaries of the Mississippi, while affording relief to the suffering and injured 
population of the Delta. 

Now, I read again from part 2 of Prolongation of the Delta: 

It is a popular belief that the bed of the Mississippi is gradually rising, and 1 
to that assumed cause is not unfrequently attributed the constantly increasing 
height required for the protecting levees. But this belief can be tracd to no 
better evidence than the fact that certain points which formerly exhibited deep 
soundings have subsequently become shallower, a circumstance which is attribu¬ 
table altogether to the shifting nature of the shore and bottom of the river. 
As consequences of the changing and movable character of the soil through 
which the Mississippi flows, shores which are at one period curved subsequently 
become salient; banks that at one time wash and cave in, at a later date fill up: 
places which during one period are gradually growing deeper, at another be¬ 
come less deep and to the sounding line indicate an elevation of the bottom. 
There is. in fact, no evidence of any change in the general level of the river’s 
bed beyond what may be inferred from the evident prolongation of the Delta, 
the lengthening out of the course of the stream, and the consequent diminution 
of the plane of descent. But this elevation of the bed is not indicated by any 
increased depth of the stream, though it must of necessity occasion a correspond¬ 
ing elevation of the surface. Any increase in the height of the floods, produced 
by a given body of water discharged in a given time, beyond what may be 
justly attributed to this extension of the Delta, must, therefore, be sought in 
other adequate causes. 

The idea which has acquired a certain hold upon public opinion that an ap¬ 
preciable elevation of the bed of the Mississippi has been produced, and is still 
going forward in consequence of the extension of the levees, has no foundation 
in experience or philosophical deduction. The extension of the levees, it will 


208 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI FIVER. 


be hereafter shown, exercises great influence upon the height of the floods, but 
not, as is supposed, by raising the bed of the river. It is true that by the in¬ 
creased transporting power which the levees give to the river and by their pre¬ 
vention of lateral deposits the Mississippi is enabled to convey greater deposits 
into the Gulf, and thus, in some slight degree, accelerate the formation of land 
opposite its mouths. To this amount and no further the extension of the levees 
may promote the elevation of the river’s bed, but this is not an appreciable 
quantity. 

It is customary to point to the Po in evidence of the effect of embanking the 
coasts of streams in producing an elevation of the bed of the river. And it is 
assumed that because the bottom of the Po and of all rivers that empty into 
the Adriatic is to be found in the great quantity of earthy matter which they 
transport to the sea, and the shallowness of the gulf into which this material 
is conveyed, this deposit in the course of 20 centuries has produced a prolonga¬ 
tion of the delta of the Po estimated at about 25 miles, and has converted cities 
which at the commencement of the Christian era were respectable seaports into 
inland towns, at this day 20 miles from the seashore. 

Senator Gibson. You mean to say that more modern investiga¬ 
tions have shown that the Po did not rise ? 

Capt. Leach. At the time that Col. Ellet was writing in the 
United States Lombardini had written in Italy a complete refuta¬ 
tion of De Prouy’s conclusions as to the bed of the Po rising. 
Lombardini’s researches were probably not known to Col. Ellet, 
who, feeling himself obliged to accept the current belief that the 
bed of the Po had risen, is so confident that levees had and could 
have nothing to do with it that he takes pains to bring forward 
another explanation. 

Cut-offs are mentioned in this outlet scheme as being, in the dim 
future, desirable to be done. 

Among tlie causes of inundations that have recently produced so much loss 
and distress on the lower Mississippi, in the opinion of the writer, must be 
enumerated the cut-offs which have been made at and below the mouth of 
Red River. It is true that men of science have denied, and do still contest, 
this point. P»ut the opinion here entertained rests on what are deemed to be 
the natural laws of the flow of the river, and, moreover, on indisputable 
results. The theory which is entertained by many intelligent persons, that 
by shortening the channel and cutting off the bends of the river the velocity 
of the current will be increased, the channel scoured out wider and deeper, 
the floods conveyed more rapidly to the sea, and the surface therefore reduced, 
is all perfectly true, excepting the practical conclusion. 

The following extract is read to show that Col. Ellet’s mind 
dwelt especially upon an outlet as a means of taking off water that 
could not be controlled in any other way: 

Rut there is another ground for the practical conclusion that extensive 
outlets may be opened without a shadow of fear for the preservation of the 
channel below. The Mississippi and its natural outlets are now greatly over¬ 
burdened in times of extreme high water and are unable to vent the volume 
which is poured into them by the distant tributaries as fast as it is brought 
down. This excess of water finds new outlets by overflowing the natural banks 
or through crevasses in the artificial levees. Outlets, then, acting only as high- 
water vents, through which this surplus may be let off, can not possibly di¬ 
minish the actual area of the river’s section below, for such outlets will dis¬ 
charge water which does not pass through the channel at all. 

****** * 

Again, it has been seen that the volume discharged by the floods of the lower 
Mississippi is annually increasing, in consequence of the extension of levees 
above. In opening outlets below Red River sufficient to give passage to this 
increased supply, as it comes, we can not possibly impair the efficiency of the 
present channel, for this increased discharge has had no part in the creation 
or maintenance of the present channel. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


209 


That passage bears on the same point. 

A word may be added in allusion to the fear often expressed that the new 
outlets, which it is proposed to open at points where the route which the 
waters will follow to the sea will be shortened, may ultimately Decoine so 
enlarged as to absorb the Mississippi itself, and thus leave the city of New 
Orleans on some secondary bayou. 

The reply to this apprehension is the fact already stated, that the water 
passing through such vents is never known to cut out or deepen its channels 
without assistance. The bayous which still lead from the river into the ad¬ 
joining lakes and swamps have been in activity during thousands of years, 
and do not seem to have gained the least on the Mississippi, while the whole 
Delta shows evidence of ancient outlets which have been tilled up by deposits 
and now no longer act in relieving the discharge of the river. 

* * * * * * * 

Indeed, the writer is not in possession of any fact which goes to show that 
any outlet can be made from the Mississippi, above New Orleans, which, left to 
itself, will become larger and ultimately excavate a new channel into the Gulf. 
If we could calculate with confidence on such a result, the problem of pro¬ 
tecting the country below Red River would be relieved of all its difficulties at 
once, for we might then open an outlet into Lake Borgne, and, turning the 
Mississippi into that arm of the Gulf, transfer its embouchure to the deep water 
south of Ship Island, and thus promptly reduce its high-water surface some 6 
feet at New Orleans. But, unfortunately, the water can not open the way with¬ 
out assistance, and the new channel will not be produced without other aid. 

Senator Washburn. You infer that he favors that if it could 
be done? 

Capt. Leach. His conclusion appears very plain. He is in favor 
of a limited high-water outlet. 

He goes on to say: 

These objections to the use of outlets, to a limited extent, are not tenable. 
It is therefore proposed to resort to high-water vents so far as is necessary to 
obtain prompt though limited relief from pressing distress and impending 
calamity, but not to rely on this expedient exclusively, or even to look to it for 
full protection or permanent security. 

The object of this examination is not considered to be merely the protection 
of the country below Red River from the difficulties against which the popula¬ 
tion there is now struggling, but to embrace the whole area of the Delta, and to 
do the work by some plan that will not be incompatible with the intention of 
Congress, as it is manifested in recent legislation, to reclaim all the lands in 
that vast area which are subject to inundation. These great purposes will be 
aided but not accomplished by outlets which, therefore, are now only recom¬ 
mended for local relief and limited application, 

* * * ^ * * * 

After describing outlets in full he says: 

But, in addition to all this, the protection of lower Louisiana will require 
other expedients. For this State, indeed, there is no alternative. She can not 
wait for Congress to discuss, doubt, survey, and appropriate. She can not wait 
for the slow machinery of legislation. She must build levees without hesita¬ 
tion or delay, or see her fields annually swept by the floods. 

* * * * * * * 

But, while recommending these prompt and vigorous measures, it is the duty 
of the writer to express his conviction that, after all these means of relief, car¬ 
ried as far as prudence and proper regard to economy and the interests upon 
which this excess of water will be turned, have been exhausted, they will be 
found insufficient to secure even the State of Louisiana against the floods which 
at no distant day will be poured down the Mississippi, while the great area 
subject to inundation in the States of Arkansas and Mississippi can receive no 
sensible relief from any of these expedients but that of levees. To secure the 
whole Delta it will be necessary to commence promptly and press Vigorously 
the great work of retaining the waters in the mountains. 


210 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


This is the reservoir idea. There are more of these extracts than 
I thought there were. I think I have read all that are really im¬ 
portant, and I hope enough to give you the opinion that the idea, 
the tenor of this report, as previously put before you, is erroneous. 

I hope it was unintentionally done, but I can scarcely believe it. 

Now, if this report is read, the impression is obtained that Col. 
Ellet was in apprehension of a perfectly appalling increase of floods 
in the Mississippi. He goes so far as to say that he thinks in no 
long period of time the increase of floods due to the progress of 
deforesting and the extension of cultivation and drainage, together 
with the building of levees, will cause an increase in the height of 
the floods of 18 feet at Red River. Since that time deforesting has 
gone on for 40 years, and I believe now is about at a maximum. 

I think that tree planting is keeping pace with deforesting. Culti¬ 
vation and drainage have gone on in the Mississippi Valley, and 
have gotten nearly as far as they are going, and we have had no 
such elevation floods. We have as yet had no floods that could not 
be restrained with levees of moderate heights. 

Such floods as Col. Ellet anticipated have never been realized; 
never will be; never can be. The whole tenor of his report shows 
very plainly that he was forced to accept the outlet theory against 
his deeper conviction, simply because he thought that no levees which 
could possibly be built would restrain the floods which he expected 
in the future. 

His idea was that the extension of the levees would hurry for¬ 
ward the discharge from above. The elevation of the flood line 
would begin at Cairo and increase until it reached this figure, 18 
feet at Red River. 

Subsequent experience has shown that these apprehensions were 
entirely unfounded. We get a good illustration of that from the Po 
at Ferrara, which occupies a position on the Po about the same as 
that of Vicksburg or Natchez on the Mississippi. The super-eleva- ’ 
tion of the flood surface within the history of the Po for several 
hundred years, due to the extension of levees and other causes, is 
about 3 feet. It is reasonable to suppose that the super-elevation 
caused by the hastening forward of the discharge of the floods will I 
bear some relation to the slope of the river and its size. In slope the 
Po leaves off at the sea about where the Mississippi begins at Cairo. ] 
If the hastening forward of the flood on the Po. with a slope of from 
30 inches per mile at its headwaters to 5 at the sea, results in an 
increased height of 3 feet at Ferrara, we may reasonably expect that 
the super-elevation of floods due to the same cause on the Mississippi 
will be less in amount—less than 3 feet, since the greatest slope of 
the latter stream is but little in excess of the least slope of the former. 

The Chairman. In how long a period? 

Capt. Leach. Forever; the causes of increase must culminate at 
some time. 

The Chairman. Capt. Leathers says the bottom of the river has 
risen 7 or 8 feet now. 

Capt. Leach. I know he does. 

The Chairman. What do you say about that? 

Capt. Leach. The gauge records show that the absolute elevation 
of the low-water surface is about—as nearly as can be figured —where 




FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 211 

it always has been at various points. Capt. Leathers runs his boat 
through low water, at about 7 feet depth, and if the bottom has risen 
7 feet, the surface remaining stationary, he would have no water to 
run his boat through. He would have to run it on wheels. The low- 
water surface has not risen. We have unquestionable evidence as to 
that. We have measurements just as good as any man can make. We 
have records that have been made at various places by a great many 
different people, so that there could be no collusion about it, no mis¬ 
take about it. They agree perfectly; they are consistent with each 
other. Their reports are that the low-water surface is exactly where 
it was for about the same volume of discharge. The records at 
Natchez go back to the beginning of this century. 

The Chairman. Capt. Leathers says the bottom of the river has 
risen at Memphis. 

Capt. Leach. I do not know what Capt. Leathers has stated. The 
records at Memphis show nothing of the kind. 

The Chairman. Now, captain, the committee will be glad to have 
you give your views as to the plans the commission have adopted to 
improve the river. 

Capt. Leach. As to the improvement of the river, I do not know 
that I have anything new to add over and above what has been stated. 
The plan of the commission has been outlined. The degree of suc¬ 
cess that has been attained has been stated. In all those points I can 
do no better than to say that I fully concur. 

The Chairman. Gen. Comstock says that, in his opinion, levees are 
not necessary to improve the navigation of the Mississippi River, 
while Maj. Suter says that in his opinion the levees are essential. 
What is your opinion about that ? 

Capt. Leach. My opinion is that they are absolutely essential; that 
there are certain well-defined possibilities to the improvement of the 
Mississippi River. There are certain natural conditions present 
which by proper scientific treatment can be made to produce a stream 
of a certain degree of navigability. It has its ultimate possibilities. 
With levees, that possibility can be attained; without levees it can 
not. Without levees a stream can be improved; with levees it can be 
improved much more. That is my idea of the river with and without 
the levees. 

The Chairman. Gen. Comstock, what is your view—is it best in 
making an appropriation of two or three millions for the improve¬ 
ment of the Mississippi River to direct the expenditure of money at 
particular points? 

Gen. Comstock. If the money is intended to be spent in protecting 
towns and cities and villages' along the river, that object will be 
attained by that process, but probably there will be very little left 
for the improvement of the river generally. 

The Chairman. Has not the commission, so far as navigation and 
its interests are concerned, been very much crippled by the action of 
Congress in thus disposing of its appropriations? 

Gen. Comstock. I think so in some degree, because I think Con¬ 
gress would have given us probably a large amount for the general 
improvement of the river if they had not made specific appropria¬ 
tions. For instance, in the last bill there was an appropriation of 
fifty or sixty thousand dollars for Columbus, some for Greenville, 


212 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


and so on down. Those were all places where money would come out 
of what we otherwise would have had to use for the general improve¬ 
ment of the river. 

The Chairman. Maj. Suter, I want to ask you the same question. 

Maj. Suter. My opinion is about the same as Gen. Comstock’s. 

Capt. Leach. That is a question rather higher in the horizon than 
I have ever been called upon to consider. I am only a subordinate. 
I have tried to execute the plans of the commission and to carry out 
the will of Congress expressed in the law, and in regard to probable 
or possible improvement in the method of making appropriations 1 
do not know that I have any opinion to express. 

Senator Washburn. I would like to ask a question. Suppose 
Congress should appropriate two and a half or three million dollars 
for the improvement of the lower Mississippi without restriction, 
how would it be expended by the Mississippi River Commission ? 

Gen. Comstock. I can answer that. I do not think it would be an 
unjust distribution to make the distribution we have made hereto¬ 
fore, two-thirds for the improvement of the river and one-third for 
levees. 

Senator Gibson. Capt. Leach, you are not a member of the Mis¬ 
sissippi River Commission ? 

Capt. Leach. No, sir. 

Senator Gibson. I suppose shortly after you graduated from West 
Point you were assigned to the Mississippi River Commission? 

Capt. Leach. I graduated in 1875, and in 1879 I was assigned as 
secretary of the commission. 

Senator Gibson. Did you have any preconceived notions as to how 
the river should be treated ? 

Capt. Leach. Not at all. 

Senator Gibson. Your opinion is based upon your experience and 
observation on the river ? 

Capt. Leach. Entirely so. 

Senator Gibson. Are you a native or a resident of the valley of the 
Mississippi ? 

Capt. Leacii. No, sir; I am a native of Indiana. 

Senator Washburn. You do not agree with Col. Ellet in the 
opinion that these outlets, what you call high-water outlets, are 
desirable ? 

Capt. Leach. No, sir. 

Senator Washburn. Under no condition of things? 

Capt. Leach. No, sir; because the conditions under which Col. 
Ellet arrived at the conclusion he did were predictions for the future. 
We are now in a good part of that future. We see that those pre¬ 
dictions will not be realized. 

Senator Washburn. Why should not the same principle apply? 
We have had very high water this year, perhaps not as high as he 
contemplated, but certainly very high. Why should not the same 
principle apply in the very high water we have had this year as he 
contemplated? 

Capt. Leach. The best method of controlling a flood is by levees. 
There are physical limits to the building of levees, and if a flood went 
so high as to exceed those limits, then it would be necessary to obtain 
relief. It was under such apprehension, in my opinion, that Col. 
Ellet proposed an outlet. 


213 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

•?wu t0i Washburn. M a j- Suter takes the position that the river 
with these outlets would not discharge the water as rapidly as though 
it were held in one channel. 

Capt. Leach. I think it is fully agreed that there would be an im¬ 
mediate relief. 1 he great destruction will come on the second or 
thud generations hence, and of course if a man is under water he 
v ill get out, regardless of what is going to happen to his descendants. 

Senator Washburn. You think that by making these outlets, take 
the Atchntalaya, we would afford immediate relief from the great 
Hoods? 

Capt. Leach. It would afford slight local relief from the pending 
flood, undoubtedly. 

Senator ashburn. In other words, it would discharge the water 
more rapidly than though you attempted to maintain it in one chan¬ 
nel? 

Capt. Leach. I do not know. 

Senator Washburn. You would get rid of it? 

Capt. Leach. Yes, sir; it would reduce the level slightly. Two 
years ago I thought myself, and stated before a committee of this 
Senate that I thought it possible to reduce the surface 10 feet by 
opening the Lake Borgne outlet. I should be compelled to divide 
that by 2 now—5 feet, by any possible outlet. 

Senator Washburn. And you hold still further that the degree of 
elevation would decrease as the years went by? 

Capt. Leach. Very much. The scope of the river to the mouth of 
the Passes would be increased. Now, if you want to increase the in¬ 
clination of a line, one end of which is fixed, it can only be done by 
raising the other end. The Mississippi River from the Gulf to New 
Orleans is such a line. Its lower end is fixed at Gulf level, and if it is 
compelled by division to take a steeper slope, it can only do it by rais¬ 
ing its level at New Orleans. The divided channels must inevitably 
take a higher slope, and in doing so the point of their divergence 
must be elevated absolutely. 

Senator Gibson. And that would make a bar. 

Capt. Leach. Unquestionably; and it will raise the flood line, also. 
Nothing else you can do will elevate the flood plane so certainly. In 
fact, that is the one solitary thing that must give New Orleans bigger 
floods than ever before. 

The Chairman. Capt. Cowden wants me to ask you certain ques¬ 
tions. Would you levee-dike, spur-dam, etc., the upper end of a 
sediment-bearing stream before you would improve the lower end of 
such a stream? 

Capt. Leach. That would depend entirely upon the conditions. 
If the lower end demanded improvement in the interest of naviga¬ 
tion and the upper end did not, I would sacrifice my theories and 
improve the lower end first, provided I held such theory; and on 
the converse, if the upper end demanded improvement and the lower 
end did not, I would improve the upper end. I would improve the 
end Avhich first demanded it. 

The Chairman. Will water flow down an angle or incline of 2 
inches to the mile faster than it will flow down an incline of 1 inch 
to the mile? 

Capt. Leach. Not necessarily. It may flow very much faster down 
the lower inclination. 


214 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


The Chairman. The same volume and the same width ? 

Capt. Leach. No restrictions with regard to volume were made. 
I was only asked one question with regard to velocity and slope. 
The velocity depends, as nearly as it can be stated in brief terms, on 
the square root of the angle of the fall and the square root of the 
mean depth. To increase the mean depth will increase the velocity 
just as much as an equal increase of slope. The average mean 
velocity of high water from Cairo to New Orleans does not differ 
very much from G feet in a second; that regardless of considerable 
changes in slope. Repeated observations, hundreds of them, are 
available to show that there is a remarkable uniformity in the mean 
flood velocity from Cairo to the Gulf. 

The Chairman. Is the fall greater at Cairo than at New Orleans? 

Capt. Leach. It is. 

The Chairman. Is the current greater at Cairo than at New 
Orleans ? 

Capt. Leach. A little greater at low water, but at high water it 
is almost the same. 

The Chairman. Then does not the greater current above bring the 
mud down faster than the slower current at the lower end can dis¬ 
charge it? 

Capt. Leacii. There is no greater current above. 

The Chairman. If you build levees higher at the lower end than 
at the upper end. does that increase or decrease the angle of fall? 

Capt. Leach. I do not think it has any effect at all. 

The Chairman. It is claimed that the inflow of water is 2,100,000 
cubic feet per second and that the outflow of water at the mouths of 
the Mississippi is 1,100,000 cubic feet per second, and, if this be true, 
how would you prevent overflows? 

Capt. Leacii. By one of the best-known principles of river physics; 
that is, that there is a very appreciable reservoir effect in the volume 
of the channel itself. If the water is flowing in at Cairo faster than 
it is flowing out at New Orleans and I am asked where the surplus 
goes I am able to reply that it gees to raising the surface of that 
water. There are thousands of square miles of water to be raised, 
and it rises sometimes in places as high as 2 or 3 feet a day. 

The Chairman. Is the South.Pass in any sense an outlet of the 
Mississippi ? 

Capt. Leach. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. Are the mouths of the Mississippi in any sense 
outlets? 

Capt. Leach. In every sense. 

The Chairman. If you wanted to get the flood water of the 
Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico quicker than it would now flow 
through the present mouths, would you close up all of the present 
mouths or would you open more outlets? 

Capt. Leach. I certainly should not close up all the mouths of any 
stream under any circumstances. I admit that I would leave at least 
one open. 

The Chairman. Would you open any more outlets? 

Capt. Leacii. No, sir. 

The Chairman. If it were possible to make the Lake Borgne out¬ 
let wide enough and deep enough to lower the flood line of the Mis- 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 215 

sissippi River at that place down to the Gulf level, would that 
enormous outflow of flood water increase or decrease the current of 
the Mississippi River? 

C apt. Leach. It would increase the current for a short distance 
above enormously and it would decrease the current below. In fact, 
if the hypothesis stated were realized, there would not be any current 
at all below except a little ebb and flow of the tide, and, of course, 
it would increase the current enormously above; it would aggravate 
the destruction of the banks, and in that way would not only make 
the maintenance of a levee system along there very precarious, but it 
would make the work of regulation of the stream very difficult. 

The Chairman. How do this year’s floods compare with floods of 
previous years? 

Capt. Leacii. The data are not in yet. There are some peculiar 
developments that would require study before expressing a definite 
* opinion. I would say as the result of what I have seen that I believe 
the flood at Memphis was about 5 per cent less than in 1882, the 
greatest in volume we have ever had, taking the whole length of the 
river. At Helena it approached closely to the 1882 flood, and below 
Helena it was the greatest flood of record in every respect except 
one—duration. In every other respect it was the greatest flood on 
record. 

The Chairman. How does the land actually overflowed compare 
with that of 1882 ? 

Capt. Leach. About 20 per cent as much. 

Senator Washburn. Twenty per cent less than in 1882? 

Capt. Leach. Only 20 per cent of what was overflowed in 1882. 

The Chairman. What do you charge that to? 

Capt. Leach. The levees. The overflow was made possible by the 
breaks in the levees. There were breaks of less than 2 miles, perhaps, 
in 1,300 miles. I may say, generally speaking, in regard to the pos¬ 
sibility of maintaining a levee system for retaining floods, we have 
this year with the greatest flood on record approached more nearly 
the complete restraint of the flood than ever before. 

The Chairman. Suppose the levees had not broken, would the 
overflow not have occurred? 

Capt. Leach. The river was almost at its height before the breaks 
began, and from information which will be placed before the com¬ 
mittee later it will be seen that the taking out of a very large quantity 
of water, at one place 400,000 cubic feet per second, had a very slight, 
unexpectedly slight, effect in reducing the height of the river. It is 
perfectly reasonable to suppose that an addition of 400,000 cubic 
feet per* second would have had no greater effect in raising the river 
than the outlet had in depressing it. I think there is a great deal of 
evidence to show that with grades in some parts 2 feet higher than 
we now have, and in other parts no higher than now, and with levees 
thoroughly policed and controlled from the beginning of the flood, 
there would be few or no breaks. 

The Chairman. What was the difficulty? 

Capt. Leach. Defective foundations. 

The Chairman. Whose fault is that? 

Capt. Leach. I do not know exactly where to put it. 

The Chairman. Were they built by the United States engineers? 


216 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


Capt. Leach. Some of them, and some not; but the foundation was 
simply what nature left, not prepared foundations. I think, how¬ 
ever, that we have underestimated the necessity of thoroughly ex¬ 
ploring the foundations of the levee. I think all the engineers con¬ 
nected with the levee work are agreed upon that now. 

The Chairman. Do the levees cave into the river? 

Capt. Leacii. Occasionally. The commission within the last two 
or three years has distinctly committed itself to the policy of prefer- 
ing, in the order of progress in bank protection by revetment, locali¬ 
ties where the caving will involve large levees. I may say, generally, 
with regard to the history of the levee system, that over three- 
fourths, probably, of the entire sum of money expended by the States 
in the last 10 or 15 years in the construction of levees would have been 
saved if the United States had prevented the banks from caving. 

Senator Gibson. You said that this recent flood was the greatest 
flood of which you have any record? 

Capt. Leach. Yes, sir. 

Senator Gibson. You mean in its height or in its volume? 

Capt. Leacii. In its volume. 

Senator Gibson. You were speaking of the volume? 

Capt. Leach. Yes, sir; but at some places it was greater in height. 

Senator Gibson. More water has passed down the Mississippi this 
winter in its flood stages than ever before? 

Capt. Leach. I believe so; that is, below the mouth of the White 
River. The very top of this flood was caused by the discharge of a 
phenomenal volume of water out of the White and Arkansas Rivers 
upon the fairly large flood which was passing Memphis. 

Senator Gibson. Have you any knowledge, from tradition or data, 
of the flood of 1828? 

Capt. Leach. There is some data on that subject, but I am not 
familiar with it now. I have not looked at it for a long time. 

Senator Gibson. Have you heard, from old people living in the 
valley, anything about the flood of 1828? 

Capt. Leach. No; I have not. The only thing I know about it 
is that there is a paragraph about it in the Humphreys and Abbott 
report, and what data there is is collated there. 

Senator Gibson. You ascribe these breaks in the levees to the enor¬ 
mous body of water that pressed against them? 

Capt. Leach. To the water against them, so long and with 
greater head than was ever known before in their history. By greater 
head I do not mean greater actual height of water in the river, but 
you know very well that if levees break extensively and back water 
rises behind them, of course, there is little or no head against them. 
In the flood of 1882 the levees, to be sure, were exposed to water per¬ 
haps 50 or 60 per cent longer than this year, but this year they were 
mostly dry behind. 

Senator Gibson. What are the facts, first, as to the number of 
miles that gave way this year, in comparison with the floods of 1882 
or 1884 and so on. and, secondly, the number of breaks? 

Capt. Leacii. I have here the report of a number of engineers made 
to the recent Vicksburg convention. It is signed by about 14 or 15 
engineers. This number comprises the United States engineers in 
charge of the district where the principal overflow occurred this year, 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


217 


two members of the Mississippi River Commission, and all the civil 
engineers engaged under all State organizations in the guarding and 
maintenance of levees during this flood. If anybody in the world 
has information about this thing these men have, and if any state¬ 
ment could be relied upon, these gentlemen’s statements certainly can. 

The disasters from the recent flood have been exaggerated and magnified 
beyond their true proportions by the sensational treatment, and which has 
tended to shake confidence in the efficiency of the levee system. In confirma¬ 
tion of this, attention is called to the following: 

In 1882 the total number of crevasses in the levees was 284, aggregating 589 
miles in width. 

In 1883 the number of crevasses was 224, with an aggregate width of 341.1 
miles. 

In 1884 the crevasses numbered 204, aggregating 106.04 miles in width. 

The result of the crevasses enumerated during these three years were the 
general overflow of the Mississippi delta. 

In the present flood, the dangers of which are nearly passed, the crevasses 
which have occurred number 23, aggregating about 4^ miles in width in a total 
length of 1,100 miles of levee—one-half of 1 per cent of the total line of levees, 
notwithstanding that the present flood has exceeded those of the three years 
cited in the height attained and all points below, and has not exceeded in 
duration. 

Senator Gibson. I wish you would state what levees constructed 
by the Mississippi River Commission, or in accordance with their 
plans, by the Army engineers, have given away. 

Capt. Leacii. I really have no information on that point whatever. 

Senator Gibson. Has a single one given away? 

Capt. Leach. I do not know. None of these levees are in my 
district. 

Senator Gibson. Yours is the Memphis district? 

Capt. Leacii. The first and second. This year we had but a single 
break, one at Austin, less than 300 feet wide. 

Senator Gibson. Built by the United States? 

Capt. Leach. By the State. 

Senator Gibson. Has any of the work in your district built by the 
United States engineers given away? 

Capt. Leach. No, sir. 

Senator Gibson. Are there any there? 

Capt. Leach. Yes, sir; 'I have about 30 miles on one side and 15 
on another, 45 miles in all. at Plum Point reach, and about 154 from 
Helena down. Half of this was built by the United States and all 
the Plum Point levees. 

While I am on the subject of Plum Point levees, I would like to 
make a little statement. 

The commission in carrying out the work in the early years at 
Plum Point had not provided for any levees. In a debate in the 
Senate on one of the river and harbor bills the point was made by a 
Senator that the commission was professing to make an experi¬ 
mental application of their system at Plum Point reach and a part 
of their plan was a levee. That year an allotment was made and a 
levee built on the Tennessee side of the reach. The next year an 
allotment was made for levees on the Arkansas side and those levees 
were built. A party was engaged all the time in making surveys. 
The surveys made after the construction of the second line of levees 
and before the first, flood and again after the first flood showed that 
the high bars in the regulated or deepened channel of about 3,500 
feet width had had their tops scalped off 8 feet uniformly. Nothing 


218 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


of the kind had ever occurred before, and in the two crossings under 
control and under improvement the maximum depths had increased 
in one case 1 foot and in another case 2 feet, and they have re¬ 
mained to this time. 

The Chairman. Since the levees were built? 

Capt. Leach. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. Have you any idea what it would cost to repair 
these levees? 

Capt. Leach. That would depend entirely upon the scheme 
adopted. My belief is now that we can strike with much more cer¬ 
tainty than ever before. This flood, with all its disasters, has con¬ 
vinced me and others, I think, of what we before believed, but could 
not prove—that is, that we can with reasonable levees confine any 
flood we are likely to have, and it seems to me that instead of work¬ 
ing as we have heretofore we ought to change the plan altogether 
and give a little more money and reduce the risk. I think it is per¬ 
fectly safe now—a year ago I would not have dared to say so—to 
have a scheme of levees that will be almost impregnable, and to do 
that, I suppose, will cost in the neighborhood of $10,000,000 at pre¬ 
vailing prices. 

The Chairman. Ten millions for repairs alone? 

Capt. Leach. To repair and enlarge and levee the St. Francis 
Basin. To repair the present breaks alone, I think, $100,000 will do 
at present rates. The breaks are not very large and do not occur 
where the levees are very high. No very high levees have broken. 
The massive levees are all intact. 

Senator Washburn. Let us understand what you propose to do 
with the $10,000,000. 

Capt. Leach. Ten millions will put up a line of levees 4 feet above 
the highest known water, with strong profile on the west bank from 
Cairo to the mouth of the St. Francis. That is the first thing. It 
will also increase the work at Plum Point to that standard. It will 
build up the White River front from Helena to and including 
Laconia to the same grade and profile. It will enlarge the Arkansas 
levees from the high land at Ames Ridge down past Arkansas City 
and on past the State line down to Red River. It will enlarge the 
lower district of the Yazoo front, and make some enlargements from 
point to point as may be necessary in the upper district. It will 
increase and strengthen the levees on both sides of the river wherever 
they now exist. 

Senator Washburn. Would it build all the levees that are 
required? 

Capt. Leach. Yes, sir. 

Senator Washburn. What is going to become of the other 
$65,000,000 which have been estimated for? 

Capt. Leach. That sum will be required for the caving banks,and 
for any other work that may be necessary in closing high-water 
chutes, and in case of local obstructions of navigation, taking such 
means as may be necessary to remove them. T mean that the sixtv- 
five millions will control the whole river. 

Senator Washburn. How will the seventy-five millions be ex¬ 
pended? You propose to expend ten millions for levees; how would 
the other sixty-five millions be expended? 

Capt Leach. In the first place I may say that sixty-five millions 
is the maximum estimate of any engineer connected with the work. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 219 

Mv own estimate would be less than half of it, and I do not think 
my estimate is the lowest possible. Some of the money would have 
to be expended to protect the banks of the river from caving. 

Senator Washburn. How do you get at that? 

Capt. Leacii. By a system of revetment, mattresses of brush bal¬ 
lasted with stone. 

The Chairman. Have not some of these mattresses caved in? 

Capt. Leach. Not recently. Not since we found 'out how to build 
them. We have not lost any since we found out how to build them. 

The Chairman. Then, in your opinion, the amount of money that 
it required to build a canal from Manchester, England, to deep water 
will protect the Mississippi River from top to bottom? 

Capt. Leach. Fifty millions will do it handsomely. 

Senator Washburn. Do you agree with Gen. Comstock that so far 
as the improvement of navigation is concerned, that is to be accom¬ 
plished more by improvements in the bottom of the river than by 
levees ? 

Capt. Leach. No ; I do not agree with him in that respect. I 
have stated my position as definitely as I can. I believe that the 
improvement is progressive; that a little improvement is better than 
none; and that complete improvement is best of all and is what the 
people need and demand. Partial improvement may be effected by 
partial control. Channel works will protect the river and control it 
so long as it is in its natural banks. Complete improvement is pos¬ 
sible only with complete control. That is only possible by levees. 

With regard to the specific way in which levees are made useful, 
I may illustrate by the practice in sewer constructions. Where the 
river makes a sharp bend at high water when it is well out of the 
banks the fall across the point is equivalent to the fall around the 
bend. Therefore the rate of the fall is very much greater across the 
point. The result is that a greater or less amount leaves the channel 
at right angles and flows across the point. If you try to make a 
junction of a branch sewer with the main at right angles you will 
have considerable trouble. They do it effectually by bringing the 
joint at an acute angle. If water flowing squarely into a sewer will 
obstruct it, why would it not do the same thing in a river ? There is 
only one way to keep it from flowing in and out of the river, and that 
is to build a levee. The water does harm when it comes out and it 
does harm when it goes in. 

The Chairman. I suppose the most important place is the middle 
of the levee where the water goes out and returns in the same place. 

Capt. Leach. Yes, sir. I think the levee should be made to fol¬ 
low the convolutions of the river as closely as the nature of the 
ground will permit. If they could be built at a uniform distance, 
a mile apart the whole length of the river, the conditions would be 
the most perfect that could be hoped for. If that is impossible, then 
the next best thing is to build them as nearly at a uniform distance 
apart as can be done. 

Statement of Capt. Dan C. Kingman. 

Capt. Dan C. Kingman, Corps of Engineers, United States Army, 
in charge of the fourth district of the Mississippi River, appeared 
before the committee. 


220 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


The Chairman. How long have you been in charge of the fourth 
district ? 

Capt. Kingman. About three years and a half. 

The Chairman. Please state your knowledge of the Mississippi 
River and its overflows in regard to navigation. 

Capt. Kingman. The present discussion in regard to the Missis¬ 
sippi River has been relative to the effect of outlets on flood heights, 
and I have here a hydrograph which shows what outlets actually 
do to the river by showing what the crevasses which have taken 
place during this last flood have done to the flood heights. I have 
here gauges at some six or seven points in my district [indicating 
on map]. This black line represents the gauge heights at Carroll¬ 
ton. This [indicating] at Bayou Sara; this [indicating] represents 
that at Red River Landing; this [indicating] is Natchez; this [indi¬ 
cating] is St. Joseph. The next gauge would be at Vicksburg, which 
is above my district. 

These little squares here [indicating] represent a half day. This 
[indicating] represents one-tenth of a foot. Starting in here on the 
1st of March and taking this gauge reading at the next half day, 
I indicate the rise or the fall, and in this way the shape of flood 
wave is shown graphically by the curve that results from the union 
of all of [indicating] these points. It is the line that would be 
marked by a pointer which moved over two of these squares each 
day and also moved up or down one of these little squares for each 
tenth of a foot that the river rose or fell. 

The river was at high stage on the 1st of March; about 14j feet 
at New Orleans, and at a corresponding height at the points above, 
and it continued to discharge at a very rapid rate the water that 
came down from above. The discharge amounted to 1,280,000 cubic 
feet per second at New Orleans on the lltli and 12th of March. 

Up to that time no breaks had occurred. At that time a break 
occurred a little above College Point, at a plantation called Nita. 
This break was due to a rice flume, a cut made through the levee 
to admit water to the fields for the purpose of irrigation; this box 
or sluice had gates to it, by means of which the water could be 
admitted to or excluded from the fields. It was a timber affair and 
the pressure of the water forced the water around and under it and 
the box was “ blown out,” thus creating an opening, which soon 
became a crevasse. 

The Chairman. I)o the people up and down these levees have 
a right to put in chutes and all that sort of thing? 

Capt. Kingman. Yes, sir; except in levees constructed by the 
United States, or unless there is a local parish law to the contrary. 
When they put them in they have to get authority from what would 
correspond to authorities of the county up here—the police jury, as 
it is called down there. 

Senator Washburn. Are they in the habit of doing that to a great 
extent ? 

Capt. Kingman. Yes, sir; hundreds of them. It is only in the 
rice-producing districts, however. 

The Nita crevasse enlarged very rapidly. After it had been run¬ 
ning for 8 or 10 days we measured the discharge and it was 90,000 
cubic feet per second, the crevasse being about 600 feet wide, with 



FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 221 

an average depth of 15 feet. The water flowed out with great 
velocity in a fan-shaped body and inundated a great area of country. 
The crevasse increased in width in spite of all efforts to restrain it 
by driving piles and putting down a mattress. Now it is 3,000 feet 
wide and 15 feet deep, discharging 400,000 cubic feet a second, or 
about one-half as much water as is now passing by New Orleans. 
Fine brick houses have been swept away and obliterated by this 
crevasse. So large an outlet as this ought to have produced a very 
marked effect on the river. If any outlet could do any good surely 
this one, discharging 400,000 cubic feet per second, ought to produce 
great relief. 

Senator Washburn. What becomes of the water? 

Capt. Kingman. It flows out across the country downward and 
eastward until it strikes the old Bonnet Carre Channel and there 
the ridge formed by that crevasse prevents it from flowing down 
any farther. It goes across the country to Lake Pontchartrain, and 
the stream is 20 miles wide there. The track of the Illinois Central 
Railroad is under water for many miles, and that road can not now 
send trains to New Orleans. The water then flows through Lake 
Pontchartrain and passes out through the Chef Menteur, the Rigo- 
lets, and through the other outlets of the lake, and you can see the 
yellow water going out through the Rigolets far into Lake Borgne. 
Clear out into Mississippi Sound can be seen Mississippi water in¬ 
stead of the green salt water which is ordinarilv seen there. 

On the College Point gauge there was a fall up to the time the 
general fall set in of about a foot and a half. That is all the relief 
that place got in the way of a direct fall. At New Orleans there 
has been a fall from the highest point until the final fall set in, of 
about a foot. The extreme height was 16 feet on the Carrollton 
gauge, and a foot was the extreme oscillation. The discharge 
through this crevasse has been shown to be nearly equal to one-half 
the volume of water now passing New Orleans. If we take out 
one-third of the water we ought, if the conditions remained the same, 
to reduce the gauge height one-third; therefore, the Carrollton gauge 
ought to have gone down to about 10| feet, but it actually went down 
to about 15 feet. 

Senator Gibson. From 16 feet? 

Capt. Kingman. Yes, sir; until the final fall set in, due to some, 
other causes. Therefore the relief from this was very slight. When 
we go up to Plaquemine, which is 50 miles above the crevasse, and 
compare the hydrograph with all the stations above, we see that there 
has been no effect from that crevasse. 

The hydrographs at Bayou Sara and Red River correspond exactly. 
They preserved their own shape up to the 21st of April, when the 
crevasse occurred up there. We had there the Preston, Taylor, the 
Fannie Riche, the old Morganza and the new Morganza breaks, the 
Raccourci, and two or three others. These crevasses occurred by the 
water overtopping the levee. For 25 or 30 miles the levees had been 
raised. We fought the rising water until the levees had been raised 
2 or 3 feet above the crown, and the water kept pace with us. Then 
a severe storm came and the waves swept volumes of water over the 
levees, so that men were driven away from their work. Then the 
sand bags and planks which had been put on it yielded and broke 

30573°—H. Rep. 300, 63-2, pt 2-15 


222 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

and were carried away. None of the levees in those places broke 
from any other cause than simply by being overwhelmed by the 
water. 

Senator Gibson. You stated that at Plaquemine, which is only 50 
miles above the Nita Crevasse, there was no change? 

Capt. Kingman. No, sir; no change at all due to this crevasse, 
though the several crevasses I have just mentioned, and with an 
aggregate discharge, two or three days after they broke, of about 
237,000 cubic feet a second, being above Plaquemine, did produce 
some effect. They were all in there together within 10 or 12 miles, 
and the fall at Bayou Sara was about a foot in less than a day. 
They caused at the mouth of Red River the first day a fall of 2 or 
3 inches, and in three or four days it amounted to about a foot. 
After that the fall was just simply that which was due to the fall 
of the river above. These several crevasses between Bayou Sara 
and the mouth of the Red River gave a discharge of 237,000 cubic 
feet per second. They gave more than that finally, because they "ot 
larger, but I give this discharge so as to compare it with the effect 
that was produced at that time. Between Red River Landing and 
Natchez there were two small crevasses, the discharge of which I 
have not got yet. I had them measured, but have not received the 
measurements yet. As near as I can tell, their discharge must have 
been about 20,000 cubic feet a second. There was rather an abrupt 
fall at Natchez of about 4 or 5 inches, evidently due to that crevasse, 
and also due to another crevasse which occurred almost opposite 
Natchez, in Lake Concordia, which must have given a greater dis¬ 
charge. These crevasses caused an abrupt fall of 4 or 5 inches at 
Natchez. At St. Joe, a comparatively short distance above Natchez, 
there is absolutely no abnormal change in the hydrograph, and no 
fall due to crevasses occurred there at all. The river there takes its 
fall naturally, due to the natural fall coming down the river from 
above. 

Senator Gibson. How many miles up is St. Joe? 

Capt. Kingman. I do not know (referring to map). Here is 
Natchez and here is St. Joe. I should say about 50 miles; about 
the same as Plaquemine was above the Nita. Down below the city 
there were a good many small crevasses, probably 12 or 14 in all. 
They have all been closed but one, and in the aggregate their dis¬ 
charge might have amounted to 20,000 or 30,000 feet a second; but 
as they only stood open two or three days, and the people began to 
close them right away, and as they have since been closed, their 
effect is insignificant and can not be traced on the hvdrograph at all. 

Now, to show what produced this remarkably liigh water below 
the mouth of the Red River, for it was remarkably liigh water: The 
Morganza levee had been built a foot and a half above high water 
of 1882, and the water of this year would have gone over the top of 
that levee from 6 to 18 inches in depth if it had not been for the 
work we built on the crown. So that at Morganza, right at that 
particular bend, the extreme high water must have been from 2 to 
2J feet above the high water of 1882. We have got the high-water 
marks of this year, but when I was up there the 1882 marks were so 
far under water that we could not find them. At New Texas we 
had better luck. We found them 19 inches below the high water of 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 223 

this year. At Baton Rouge the river was 5 inches above 1882, if 
I remember right. I talked with a good many inhabitants of the 
valley—the oldest inhabitants probably—and they all admitted that 
they had never seen any water that approached the present water in 
height. They pointed to some of their old marks—trees, old levees, 
etc.—then submerged, which they said they had never known to be 
under water before. It was certainly the highest water below Red 
River that has been there within historic times. 

On the 1st of March, before the levees had broken in Arkansas, 
north Louisiana, and Mississippi, the Atehafalaya at its head was 
about 6 or 8 inches lower than the Mississippi River at Red River 
Landing, and a good current was flowing from the Mississippi out 
into the Atehafalaya—not a very large discharge, but quite a con¬ 
siderable amount of water—and doubtless the Atehafalaya was 
affording some relief to the Mississippi. This continued until about 
the middle of March. Then the advance of the crevasse water that 
found its way down the Tensas began to appear below the mouth 
of Red River. It filled up the Atehafalaya and in a few days 
brought it above the level of the Mississippi, and the water began 
to return to this river. The inlet extended all the way from the 
Bougere Swamp down to the mouth of Red River. It was prac¬ 
tically impossible to measure the amount of water coming out that 
way, because it flowed through the woods for miles and miles, and 
you could see the nearly clear crevasse water extending out 800 or 
900 feet from the bank and pushing the Mississippi Avater toward 
the other side of the river. The effect seemed to retard rather than 
accelerate the current of the river. That is what caused the high 
water there. 

The Atehafalaya has been carrying off an immense amount of 
water. The last discharge that we had measured was taken there 
on about the 1st of May. The Atchafalaj^a was then carrying nearly 
5,000 cubic feet a second over the dams that we put in. It was not 
required when we put the dams in that they should permit the pas¬ 
sage of over 200,000 cubic feet a second; and they would do this 
with a velocity of 4 feet a second. Now, there is a velocity over the 
dam of about 9. The velocity is so great that steamboats can hardly 
stem it. In fact, some good steamboats have been forced to make 
two or three attempts before they could pass through that portion 
of the channel. A great many of the levees down below have given 
away, and the Atehafalaya is spread out right and left and covers 
the country down below Simmsport. There is no Red River water 
passing down the Atehafalaya at its head now. The Red River 
begins to show itself in the river near Simmsport, 6 miles from the 
head. 

Senator Gibson. Does the Red River go on the north side of Turn- 
bulls Island now? 

Capt. Kingman. There has been a channel there always—a clear 
and well-defined channel—but not quite as deep a channel as on the 
south side. 

Senator Gibson. It was thought that the sills would turn it around? 

Capt. Kingman. No, sir. They were placed about 6 miles down 
the Atehafalaya and had no effect upon the water of the Red River. 
A sill was built last fall to connect Turnbulls Island to the main line 


224 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

between the old mouth of Red River and the head of the Atchafalaya. 
A dam is to be placed upon this sill, and when the dam is put in there 
it will doubtless cause the river in low stages to pass around the north 
side of the island. 

Senator Gibson. Now, while there were 500,000 cubic feet per sec¬ 
ond going out the Atchafalaya, how much was going down the Mis¬ 
sissippi? That was all Mississippi water? 

Capt. Kingman. Pretty much. It did not come directly out of the 
Mississippi, but it was all crevasse water. There was about 1,450,000 
cubic feet a second going down the Mississippi below Red River Land¬ 
ing at this time—that is, in round numbers. 

The Chairman. What is your conclusion about the outlet system 
at Lake Borgne? 

Capt. Kingman. It would be a disappointment. It would not 
afford the relief which is counted on; it would be an entire failure as 
a means of relief from overflow. If it did any good at all, tempo¬ 
rarily it might do good from the outlet down to the mouth of the 
river, where there is no land of any particular value. A narrow strip 
of land runs along the river from Lake Borgne to the forts which is 
about as liable to overflow from the back water as it is from the front 
w r ater, and this danger would be increased rather than diminished 
by the discharge of the Mississippi through the outlet above it. 
Finally, I do not see why there should be any more relief at New 
Orleans from this Lake Borgne outlet than there was at Plaquemine 
from the Nita Crevasse. I think that we have an absolute demonstra¬ 
tion of what an outlet will do. Here is a crevasse which is now 
flowing, and this is what it has done. Below the crevasse it has 
afforded a little relief, but nothing like commensurate with the 
amount of water taken out, and above the crevasse it has afforded no 
relief at all. 

Senator Washburn. Do you not thing the Atchafalaya has given 
relief ? 

Capt. Kingman. I think it has; yes, sir. But I think it has done 
so because the condition of the Mississippi River near the mouth of 
Red River is an abnormal one. The Atchafalaya has been there so 
long that the river has adapted itself to that condition. Now the 
Mississippi River flows in a channel of its own formation, and if jmu 
were to compare a map of the river of 50 years ago with the map of 
the present day you would find that the channel of the Mississippi is 
entirely different. If it occupies the same channel now that it did 
then, it would most likely be because it had gone away and come back 
again, except at the lower end of the river, where the changes in the 
channel are less rapid. This channel has a certain size. It is of a 
size sufficient to carry its average flood discharge. Whenever it has 
to carry a discharge which is greater than the average discharge it 
is overtaxed. If it had only to carry half the water it does now, 
it would have onty half its present capacity of channel. 

The Chairman. Was not the channel of the Atchafalava dry in 
1840? 

Capt. Kingman. It can not be said to have been dry; it had a very 
much less capacity of discharge then than it has now. 1 think in 1836 
the State removed, or partially removed, the raft in the Atchafalaya, 
which was situated from 12 to 20 miles below its head. This was a 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 225 

mass of trees, logs, and drift. It was partially floating and the water 
ran under and through it; but while it greatly diminished, it did not 
absolutely stop the discharge down the Atchafalaya. Old people 
living on the Atchafalaya have told me that at the head of the river 
* they crossed in low water on N a single fence rail at a place where it is 
now 1,000 feet wide and 100 feet deep. 

The Chairman. It has been making an outlet of itself? 

Capt. Kingman. Yes, sir. It is a case different from any other of 
the outlets on the Mississippi. My own idea is that the Atchafalaya 
is not a natural outlet of the Mississippi. It is not a part of the 
Delta proper. I think there were originally three independent rivers 
flowing into the Gulf, namely, the Red River, which reached the Gulf 
through the Teche; the Black River, which flowed through the Atcha¬ 
falaya ; and the Mississippi River. Those three rivers flowed in their 
own separate channels. In the course of time the Red River ob¬ 
structed its own channel near the head of what is now the Teche; its 
water was forced north of the Avoyelles prairie till it found its way 
into the open channel of the Black River. The Red River thus be¬ 
came a tributary of the Black River. The Red River continued to be 
a raft maker, and in time it obstructed the channel of the Black, or 
what is now called the Atchafalaya. At this time the Mississippi 
River caved in to the Black River at a point below its junction with 
the Red, and both of the rivers became tributaries of the Mississippi, 
and would have remained so if new conditions had not been set up 
by the removal of the Atchafalaya raft. 

The Chairman. These rivers are tributaries to the Mississippi, 
but at a certain stage of water the Mississippi becomes tributary to 
them? 

Capt. Kingman. Yes, sir. The Red River flows now, since the raft 
has been removed out of the Atchafalaya, down the Atchafalaya to 
the Gulf. The Mississippi occupies its own channel. They are con¬ 
nected by Old River like the Siamese twins. If the water in the two 
rivers is of the same height, there is no circulation. If one is higher 
than the other, the current is from the higher to the lower. If the 
Red is the higher, then its water divides and part goes down the 
Atchafalaya and the rest goes out to the Mississippi. If the other 
condition prevails, then all the Red River goes down the Atchafalaya 
and a part of the Mississippi goes over until it raises up the Atcha¬ 
falaya enough to establish a condition of equilibrium, and so the 
water flows. That is the reason that the Atchafalaya does not close 
up, because it always has the Red River to act upon it. Sometimes 
it has the Mississippi. 

Senator Gibson. It is both an outlet and an inlet ? 

Capt. Kingman. It is not exactly an inlet. The Atchafalaya does 
not flow into the Mississippi. 

The Chairman. Did it never flow into the Mississippi ? 

Capt. Kingman. No, sir; it never was a tributary to the Missis¬ 
sippi. I think it was the lower half of Black River. It was not a 
part of the delta of the Mississippi. Its banks are a black, clayey 
deposit, and upon that is found a red deposit, and upon that it is 
sandy. It looks like the work of the Black River, and then of the 
Red and Black combined, but it is clearly an independent river by 
itself, with this accidental connection between it and another river. 


226 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

It always has the Red River to flow down, and it is no more likely to 
deteriorate than if the Mississippi was not there. That is the reason 
it does not fill up like the other outlets. 

The Chairman. Are you familiar with the methods of the Mis¬ 
sissippi River Commission in improving the Mississippi River for 
navigation? 

Capt. Kingman. No, sir; not very familiar. My district only goes 
up as far as Vicksburg. There have been no channel improvements 
in my district, so that what I know of the channel works has been 
only what I saw in passing over the river or what I read about them 
in the annual reports. All the work I have done has been local, such 
as at the mouth of the Red River, New Orleans Harbor, and the con¬ 
struction and maintenance of levees. 

The Chairman. In your district, as between levees and outlet sys¬ 
tem, you have no doubt? 

Capt. Kingman. I have not a particle of doubt. 

The Chairman. Suppose you drop all considerations of over¬ 
flows and regard navigation alone, how then? 

Capt. Kingman. I should consider that the levee is a very im¬ 
portant means of improving navigation, and I can give an in¬ 
stance. The Morganza crevasse was caused by a break that occurred 
in 1874. It remained open as a crevasse practically until closed in 
the winter of 1886 and 1887, a period of about 12 years. It has 
a deep bend there and plenty of water, and there had been no 
trouble with the navigation until after the crevasse was formed. 
After the crevasse occurred the navigation became worse and worse, 
and steamboat men told me they hated to run that bend at night, 
particularly in loiv water, not when the water was running out. 
When the water was running out there would seem to be danger of 
being drawn into the crevasse. The steamboat men dreaded it at 
low water because the sand bar, or tongue of land opposite this 
bend, had extended so far over into the bend that there was hardly 
room enough for two large steamboats to pass there. The crevasse 
was closed, jointly by the commission and by the State, in the 
winter of 1886 and 1887. Since then the navigation has steadily 
improved, until now it is as good as it ever was. The current is 
quite regular. There is ample room now, and steamboat men have 
spoken to me repeatedly this year about the great improvement 
which has taken place in Morganza Bend since the crevasse has 
been closed. There is an actual case where the building of a levee 
made bad navigation good. 

Of course, at Bonnet Carre there was a crevasse open for a long 
time, but the river was so deep at that place, there being no abrupt 
bend, that the navigation did not get bad. It certainly got worse 
than it was, but to reduce a channel from 60 feet down to 40 feet, 
when the boats draw but 10 or 12 feet, does not make any difference, 
so that a sounding line would be required to show that "the channel 
depth had deteriorated and afterwards been restored. Of course, 
there was not enough change there for steamboat men to notice. 
This Morganza case is a good one in point. 

The Chairman. Where does the Morganza water go? 

Capt. Kingman. It passes down through what is known as the 
Choctaw Swamp, until it comes down nearly back of the town of 
Plaquemine, and there it finds its way through an intricate system of 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 227 

channels into Grand Lake, and ultimately goes out in Lower Atcha- 
falaya Bay. 

Senator Gibson. How many breaks or crevasses did you have in 
your district during the whole season? 

Capt. Kingman. About 32. 

Senator Gibson. How many did you close? 

Capt. Kingman. Out of this number we closed about a dozen. 

Senator Gibson. That would leave about 20? 

Capt. Kingman. Yes, sir. 

Senator Gibson. How many miles? 

Capt. Kingman. A little less than 2 miles would be the total length 
of them. 

Senator Gibson. How many of those crevasses occurred in works 
built by the United States engineers ? 

Capt. Kingman. If I recollect aright, there was but one; that was 
the Morganza. That broke in the manner I have described; the 
break was right in the center of the new Morganza. 

Senator Gibson. How much money would it take to put up these 
levees and raise them to flood heights; that is, to the heights at which 
you raise them? 

Capt. Kingman. I have rot made an estimate of what it would 
cost, but I think most of the breaks can be closed right in the throats 
of the crevasses. Where a break is 500 or 250 feet long, to build that 
short distance and to raise it 2 or 3 feet above the general height 
of the levee would hardly be logical. To restore the levees to the con¬ 
dition they were in before the breaks occurred would cost $100,000. 
That is a liberal estimate, and I do not think it would cost more than 
that. 

Capt. Leach. I think the whole system can be restored to the condi¬ 
tion in which it was before this flood occurred by the expenditure of 
in the neighborhood of $100,000. 

Capt. Kingman. It would cost in the neighborhood of $5,000,000 to 
make them perfect in my district; that is, to put them up 5 feet 
higher than they now are from Vicksburg to the mouth of Red River, 
4 feet from there to New Orleans, and 3 feet from there to the Forts, 
and to give them at the same time the proper slopes. 

Senator Gibson. Your district would have to be leveed on both 
sides? 

Capt. Kingman. Yes, sir; from Baton Rouge down. That is more 
than half the distance. 

Senator Gibson. Have you ever been to Holland? 

Capt. Kingman. No, sir. 

Senator Gibson. On the River Rhine or the Danube? 

Capt. Kingman. No, sir. 

“ The Levee Theory on the Mississippi River,” An Informal Dis¬ 
cussion at the Annual Convention American Society of 

Civil Engineers, June 10, 1903. 

B. M. Karroo, past president American Society of Civil Engineers. 

The question whether a theory is justified by experience is hardly 
fair, when its application is quite incomplete, as is the case on the 
lower Mississippi River, where the levees have as yet neither the 



228 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

grade, section, nor extension considered necessary, and the present 
contents in cubic yards are not more than two-thirds of the quantity 
required by the adopted standard. 

The discussion of the subject, however, is opportune, as a recent 
flood of magnitude has excited interest and afforded much informa¬ 
tion. 

The justification of the “levee theory ” is involved in such changes 
in the bed of the river, as a flood channel, as result either from 
natural causes or from an increase of the discharge by levees during 
more than bank-full stages. If the bed is rising, or the capacity is 
otherwise reduced by natural and continuing conditions, the com¬ 
pletion of a levee system will be prolonged, if not made inter¬ 
minable. If the bed is not rising and the waterway is maintained 
or improved, either by deepening or widening by the discharge of a 
larger volume at higher velocity, then the problem, though large, is 
simple and certain. 

The Mississippi River Commission, therefore, has given careful 
investigation to such changes since its appointment. Local and 
seasonable movements are constantly going on. At certain stages 
bars build up and pools scour. At others this process is reversed. 
Besides this, there is a general downstream and snake-like movement 
of the sinuosities of the stream. The current binds against the 
upper and is slack against the lower side of points. Therefore the 
points, with their opposite concavities, move slowly downward from 
erosion on the’upper and accretion on the lower side. The location 
of the pools and bars has a definite relation to the curvature of the 
bends, the former lying in the concavities, alternately on the right 
and left banks, and the bars at the nodes or revision points between 
the pools. Hence, as the bends move downstream the bars and pools 
move with them. Again, as a result of caving on one and accretion 
on the opposite bank, the river shifts sideways. Instances are not 
wanting where this movement has amounted to its entire width in 15 
or 20 years. 

It is evident that with these unstable conditions but little can be 
learned from isolated or scattered surroundings. A cross-section 
line over a bar may, in a few years, lie through a pool, or the river 
may have slipped to one side, leaving it on dry ground. 

In the years 1881, 1882, and 1883 the commission made an exact 
and detailed survey of the river from Cairo to the Head of the 
Passes, a distance of 1,063 miles, with cross sections averaging about 
4 to the mile, and 75 soundings to the line. There was no better way 
of investigating this difficult and important question than by repeat¬ 
ing the survey. This was done in 1894, 1895, and 1896, after an 
interval of 13 years, over that part of the river where the levee 
system had been most improved during the interval, from the mOuth 
of White River to Donalclsonville, La., a distance of 472 miles. This 
second survey was made in greater detail in order that it might 
better serve for future comparisons. 

There is a limit to the value of the results obtainable even by 
this exhaustive process, of which the commission was aware, but no 
better method seemed available. A comparison between the two 
surveys would be conclusive in proportion to the similarity of the 
stage conditions preceding them and prevailing while the parties 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVEB 


229 


were m the field. Each survey was of such magnitude and detail 
as to require several months, and it was improbable that there would 
be a close repetition of the conditions of the first during the second. 

Both surveys and the analysis of their elements were made under 
the charge of J. A. Ockerson, member American Society of Civil 
Engineers, and his detailed report on them is found in the reports 
of the Mississippi River Commission for 1896 and 1897, published, 
respectively, in the sixth and fifth parts of the reports of the Chief 
of Engineers for those years. 

The following conclusions from his study of the conditions are 
well founded: 

The differences found in these two surveys do not necessarily 
represent all the changes or the resultant of all the changes that 
may have taken place between them. During this time the condi¬ 
tions of the river bed may have varied in both directions from those 
found in either survey. They should, however, indicate any trend, 
or persistent and progressive change that has taken place. This 
general tendency seems to be toward a channel more uniform in 
depth and of greater capacity. 

The conditions under which the two surveys from Vicksburg to 
Donaldsonville were made were so different as to give abnormal 
results. The first (1882) was after the greatest recorded flood and 
on the rise of the succeeding one, which was of considerable magni¬ 
tude, while the last (1895-96) was preceded by two seasons of 
extreme low water, and a very moderate intermediate flood, during 
which sediment transported from above would be deposited in the 
lower part of the river, particularly below Red River, where a rela¬ 
tively large low-water section, flat slopes, and correspondingly small 
velocities are found. 

A duplication of the survey of 1881 is now being made over that 
part of the river from Cairo to the mouth of the Arkansas along 
which the levee system has been much extended since 1895. In the 
future, at proper intervals of time, similar resurvevs will be made 
over the entire river, until they yield indications of a persistent and 
progressive change. 

It may be assumed that the low-water plane conforms to the shape 
of the river bed, and that any elevation or depression of the latter, as 
the result either of natural causes or of levee building, will be re¬ 
corded in the low-water gauge readings. The improvement of levees 
during the past 20 years, and their effect in increasing the height of 
floods, has been most marked in the 500 miles of river in which are in¬ 
cluded the gauge stations of Fulton, Memphis, Greenville, and Lake 
Providence. There has, as yet, been no levee building which has 
affected the flood stage at Cairo. The effect on the bed of the river, 
therefore, may be observed by comparing the low-water stages at the 
points where levee improvement has been greatest with those at Cairo 
where no influence of the kind has been felt. 

Prior to 1882 the United States had built no levees, and the insuf¬ 
ficient and incomplete State levees existing at the time were badly 
wrecked by the flood of that year, which left them in quite an un¬ 
serviceable condition. 

If the average of the low waters at the points mentioned above, 
which have been selected as fairly representative, for the five years 


230 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


following this disaster of 1882 (1883 to 1887) and that of the last 
five years (1898 to 1902) be compared with the averages of the low 
waters at Cairo during the same two periods, as a standard, there 
will be observed, during the latter period an average relative depres¬ 
sion of the low-water surface of 0.74 foot at Fulton, 0.68 foot at 
Memphis, 1.60 feet at Greenville, and 1.89 feet at Lake Providence. 

These reductions of the low-water plane are indicative of a depres¬ 
sion of the bed, and are proportionate to the duration and degree of 
levee maintenance and improvement in the vicinity of the gauge sta¬ 
tions mentioned. 

Table No. 3 will make this statement clearer. 

It was observed, in the great flood of 1897, that: 

The first gauge below Red River to exceed its previous record was the lowest 
oue on the river, at Fort Jackson. The next was the Carrollton gauge, and so 
on up to Red River, where the gauge did not exceed its previous record until 
1G days after the Carrollton gauge had done so. When the Carrollton gauge 
had reached its previous maximum, that at Red River still lacked 1.6 feet of 
the height which had produced that maximum. 

The same prematurity of rise at the lower-gauge stations occurred 
during the present year. In a discussion of this phenomenon by 
Maj. Derby, member American Society of Civil Engineers, in the 
report of the Mississippi River Commission for 1900, it was con¬ 
sidered as due to one of only three causes: (1) A raising of the bed 
of the river below Carrollton; (2) the effect of crevasses and their 
closure, or (3) an increase of the carrying capacity of the channel 
between Red River and Carrollton by which the resistance to dis¬ 
charge and the slope over that 200 miles of river was reduced. His 
analysis of flood waves ranging in height, at Red River, from 19.3 
to 45.2 feet between the years 1872 and 1899, discredited the first 
two causes and led to the conclusion that the discharge capacity of 
this part of the river had been increased during the period under 
consideration. 

Besides these extended comparative observations, others of a more 
local character have been made in connection with crevasses or tem¬ 
porary outlets, as at Malone’s Riverton, Bolivar, Mound Place, 
Morganza, Bonnet Carre, and Cubitts Gap. Whatever the resurvey 
was made afttr the occurrence of an outlet it showed a reduction off 
the cross-sectional area below. When made after closure, an en¬ 
largement has been observed. 

When, in 1880, the river was first subjected to continuous observa¬ 
tion, the levee system was in its infancy; some basins were entirely 
unleveed, and such crude levees as existed were breached at many 
places by every high water. It was than noticed that the rise and 
fall was very different at different places. When classified, the 
greater annual oscillations, amounting generally to about 45 feet, 
were found at or near the mouths of the tributaries—the Ohio, St. 
Francis, Arkansas, Yazoo, and Red Rivers—while the lesser ones, 
averaging only about 35 feet, were observed at intermediate points 
along the fronts of the great basins drained by these tributaries, as 
at Fulton, Memphis, Greenville, Lake Providence, and St, Joseph. 

The gauge readings, when plotted, showed a smooth and regular 
high-water slope, while that of the low-water slope was quite irregu¬ 
lar, being depressed about the junctions of the tributaries and 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 231 

raised between them or along the basin fronts. A diagram of the 
high water of 1882 and the low water of 1883, Fig. 2, shows that 
these differences in annual oscillation were caused not by the rise 
but by the excess of fall at the tributaries over that on the bars of 
the elevated bed of the river between them. 

It was further indicated by the discharge observations taken at 
high waters at the places near the tributaries and at the others along 
the basin fronts that the discharges at the former were about 
1,500,000 cubic feet per second and exceeded those at the latter or 
intermediate points along the basin fronts by several hundred thou¬ 
sand feet. 

This difference, from a quarter to a half million feet at times, had 
escaped from the river bed over the banks into the basins, and was 
returned to the main river below through the tributaries, which are 
the outfalls for their normal and overflow drainage. Where the 
river discharged between the banks the entire flood volume the bed 
was deepened, and where it discharged only two-thirds of that volume 
the bed was shallowed. The depletion of a thousand floods by over¬ 
flow had impressed this shape upon the bed. 

A part of the “ levee theory ” is that the escape of flood water from 
the river along the fronts into the adjacent basins caused the eleva¬ 
tion of bed that existed, as evidenced by the low-water slope, and 
that when this is prevented by levees and the discharge confined a 
primary effect will be the reproduction in the high-water slope of 
those elevations which have been observed and described in the low. 
This has already been brought about by the extension and improve¬ 
ment of levees, and is measured by the excessive height of recent 
floods at points situated along the middle of basin fronts, as Memphis 
or Lake Providence. It will be observed that an equal increase of 
heights has not occurred at the mouths of the tributaries. 

Another part of the u levee theory ” is that a reversal or removal 
of the conditions which have contracted one part of the waterway 
and relatively enlarged another of the same river will remove these 
differentiations, and that with a uniform discharge for each stage 
from Cairo to the sea, affected only by increments from the normal 
drainage of the basins through an erosible bed which the river has 
molded to its needs, these irregularities of slope, velocity, and section 
will disappear, and that there will result a regular and substantially 
parallel slope curve flattened a little by each increment of volume 
from a tributary until Red River is reached, and from thence down 
the slopes at all stages will converge to sea level. 

If the flow is as great along the basin fronts as at the tributaries, 
why should not the channel capacity of this strictly sedimentary 
stream be as great at one place as at another ? 

The condition in which the commission found the river, and of 
which a description has been attempted, is the result of many cen¬ 
turies of alternation of channel depletion and enlargement at every 
flood stage. It is not to be expected that an accumulation of deposit, 
almost geological in its age and its mass, will be removed by 5 or 
10 years of levee improvement or by a few great floods occurring 
at intervals of 5 or 6 years. But with the force and time we have 
on hand the result is not in doubt. The evidence of a start in this 
direction is given in a previous part of this discussion. 


232 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

The result of all observations seems to show a general tendency 
to an enlargement of the stream, that its capacity for flood discharge 
has been more than maintained, and that the apprehension of its 
deterioration from natural causes or from levee building may be 
dismissed as at least unproved if not disproved. 

Consideration must also be given to the floods of the future, which 
will seek an outfall through the channel below Cairo. Will they be 
of greater volume than those of the past? They come from four 
sources, the upper Mississippi, the Ohio, and the Missouri. water¬ 
sheds, and from the tributaries of the main trunk below Cairo. It 
may generally be stated that, when the first three form a combination 
which causes a dangerous stage on the lower Mississippi, about two- 
thirds of the discharge, or 1,000,000 cubic feet per second, is con¬ 
tributed by the Ohio. This is the controlling factor in great floods. 

While the relation between deforesting and precipitation is as¬ 
sumed rather than established, there is no doubt that the processes 
of clearing, draining, and cultivating may materially affect the dis¬ 
tribution of the run-off, delivering to the streams of outfall a larger 
share in a shorter time, and tending to higher high waters and 
lower waters. Under certain topographic conditions, these results 
may be limited and even reversed. It is, therefore, an important 
part of this discussion to consider the bearing which the conditions 
of the four sources of supply have had, and will have, upon the high 
waters of the lower Mississippi. 

It seems probable that the future changes in the flood conditions 
in the upper Mississippi Basin will be slight. The forests, or those 
having commercial value, have been very largely cut down, cultiva¬ 
tion under the improved methods is already greatly extended, the 
reservoir system may be increased, and while the projected discharge 
of the Chicago Canal, constituting about one-tenth of the low-water 
discharge of the river below Cairo may be appreciably beneficial to 
low-water navigation, its contribution of about one-half of 1 per 
cent to the flood volume is too small for consideration. 

It is unfortunate that the records do not extend far enough back 
to give a life history of these tributary rivers, the gauges having 
generally been established within the iast 30 years. Fortunately, 
since it bears on the most important Hood factor, Cincinnati is an ex¬ 
ception, having a continuous record of 45 years. An examination of 
this shows that, if this period is divided in halves, the average of 
flood heights on the Ohio in the first half is 48.80, and in the second 
52.37 feet. If, however, it is divided into thirds, they give the fol¬ 
lowing relation of averages for the three periods: 48.51, 52.57, and 
50.69 feet. For low water the average result for half periods is 3.80 
and 3.86 feet, and for thirds is 3.83, 3.60, and 4.06 feet. It does not 
appear, therefore, that on the Ohio River, for the last 45 years, there 
has been a progressive change to higher high waters to" lower low 
waters (although the processes to which such a result is usually at¬ 
tributed have presumably continued), but rather that some conserva¬ 
tive or restorative influence has been in operation. 

The physical conditions in the basin of the Missouri are materially 
different from those in the Ohio. Except about the headwaters, it 
is a region of gentler slopes, largely without forests. Its progres¬ 
sive occupation and cultivation will be accompanied by plowing and 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI EIVEK. 233 

planting surfaces which are now smooth and barren, and probably 
by a great development of reservoir building for irrigation. The 
tendency of these processes should be to check the rapidity with 
which its floods are discharged and render less likely their coinci¬ 
dence with those of the Ohio, which generally culminate in February 
or March. 

The tributaries below Cairo may be grouped together for consid¬ 
eration. While some of them head in arid regions similar to those 
drained by the Missouri, they generally flow through flat alluvial 
lands, where drainage is and always will be slow, and where the pre¬ 
vailing forests will be gradually replaced by a cultivation which will 
not materially hasten the run-off. With overflow excluded from the 
basins, there is no reason apparent why the natural discharge of 
these drainage systems should be materially increased in the future. 

If not levees, what then? Reservoirs or outlets? 

The tendency of any extension of a reservoir system on the upper 
Mississippi or Missouri would be to abate floods on the lower Mis¬ 
sissippi, but probably to a degree hardly appreciable. Such a sys¬ 
tem on the Ohio, if practicable, might produce more important re¬ 
sults. But the late Mil nor Roberts, past president American So¬ 
ciety of Civil Engineers, closed this part of the subject forever in 
his most able report of 1870. 

Outlets have received theoretic support in the report of Hum¬ 
phreys and Abbot, and of the United States Commission of Engi¬ 
neers of 1875 for the reclamation of the alluvial basin from over 
flow; but, after a detailed examination, they are unanimously— 

Forced unwillingly to tlie conclusion that no assistance in reclaiming the allu¬ 
vial region from overflow can judiciously be anticipated from artificial outlets. 
They are correct in theory, hut no advantageous sites for their construction 
exist. 

The views on which these theoretical conclusions in favor of out¬ 
lets were based, viz, that the bed of the stream was in a material 
so inerosible, and that changes in volume and velocity bore so little 
relation to scour or deposit, that its shape and dimensions would not 
respond to these changes, have not been upheld by more recent and 
exhaustive observations. These show that the bed is in a material 
which is being moved by the current from day to day and from bar 
to bar, and that its shape and dimensions are the resultants of this 
force. 

The experience in levee building is that the limit to which the use 
of the material and methods of'their construction can be safely ex¬ 
tended has not yet been approached. The larger levees, which reach 
in sloughs or other depressions a height of 30 to 40 feet, and even 
more, are generally considered as among the safest. 

Many substitutes and reenforcements for the earthen embankment, 
of various materials and construction—wood, stone, steel, concrete, 
etc.—have been proposed; but when all things are considered, in¬ 
cluding ease of construction, economy, and endurance, the outlook 
at present is that a carefully constructed earthen levee system, with 
sufficient grade and section, when properly cared for, presents 
advantages with which competition will always be extremely difficult. 

There are two natural conditions prevailing on the Mississippi 
below Cairo which add materially to the practicability and efficiency 


234 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


of the “ levee system.” One is the general presence of Bermuda 
grass, which grows with closely interwoven stems, attached to the 
ground by root tufts at close intervals, and forms a dense sod, pre¬ 
senting great protection against wave wash. The other is the high 
charge of sediment carried by the river at its higher stages. As the 
water seeps into and through the levees, it is filtered, the particles 
being deposited in the interstices of the soil of which it is built. 
The clear water percolates through to the land slope, while its charge 
of sediment remains and gradually diminishes the leakage. 

The experience concerning the cost of making good the losses 
sustained by the existing levees, from caving banks and breaks from 
other causes, has been collated for the past eight years. It amounts 
annually, during that period, to a little less than 1| per cent. The 
losses by the flood of this season and by certain important works of 
renewal now in sight will probably temporarily increase this annual 
cost in the near future. Also, as the levees approach the grade and 
section which it is considered necessary to give them, and their con¬ 
tents per linear foot are thus increased, the work of closing any gap 
that may occur will be proportionately greater. On the other hand, 
the better locations, construction, and care which are already made 
possible, to a certain degree, and which can in the future be practiced 
to a still greater extent, from the more liberal and regular supply 
of funds, should tend to a reduction of the annual losses from caving 
banks and the occasional losses from extreme high waters. 

This increase of resources can be expected both from a fuller 
realization by the General Government of the importance of the work 
which it has undertaken, the reclamation from overflow, and the 
agricultural and commercial development of 20,000,000 acres of the 
most fertile soil, and from the increasing number and wealth of the 
communities now occupying and improving these lands. 

The amount applied to the extension and improvement of the 
levee system of the lower Mississippi in the year 1900 was about 
$2,961,000. Of this about $1,000,000 was allotted from the appro¬ 
priation by Congress for the river below Cairo, and the remainder 
was suplied by the levee organizations of the riparian States. This 
is substantially the division of cost which has prevailed sin<;e the 
Government has shared in the construction of a levee system. Sev¬ 
eral of these local organizations now feel justified, by their experi¬ 
ence with the “ levee theory,” to seek legislative authority for an 
increase of their contribution by additional taxation and bond issues. 

When the levee system of the lower Mississippi shall have been 
completed, it will still be but an engineering structure, subject to the 
vicissitudes of time and accident. It will need constant care, and 
occasional renewal of parts. Crevasses will occur as long as trains 
are derailed, or collide, as ships are wrecked, or fireproof buildings 
are destroyed. A crevasse in the levee of the future will be a more 
serious disaster than in one of the present time, in proportion to its 
greater depth and discharge, and the greater improvements which 
have developed under its protection. But this is the case with all 
of our work, whose progress has not been deterred by the greater 
risks which are necessarily assumed in meeting the demands of 
modern civilization. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 235 

This discussion, already too long, will be closed with a short com¬ 
parison of the floods of 1897 and 1903 and their results. 

The computations of the discharge measurements of the last flood 
are not yet complete, but it is apparent that the maximum discharge 
of 1897 was slightly more than that of 1903. Greater heights were 
generally reached this year, mainly along the fronts of the basins 
where levees have made the greatest reduction in the overflow, but 
not at the mouths of the tributaries. This increased height was due 
both to the extension of levees along hitherto unleveed fronts, and 
to the improvement made in the existing lines since 1897, which 
enabled them to exert more resistance and control. 

The greatest increase of flood height this year was about 3 feet 
at Memphis, where levees have been but recently extended. Never¬ 
theless, there were, in 1897, between Cairo and New Orleans, a 
distance of 960 miles, 43 crevasses, while during the past flood, so 
great had been the improvement of levees in the meantime, there 
were but 6. While the limit of the overflowed area has not yet been 
completely ascertained, it is known to be reduced largely, if not quite 
in proportion to the lesser number of breaks. 

The experience of 1903 makes advisable a revision of the provi¬ 
sional standard in the vicinity of some of the gauge stations. 

It will be observed that no high water has yet reached the pre¬ 
dicted standard. 

The engineers engaged in the reclamation of the valley of the 
Mississippi River from overflow know more about levee building than 
they have yet had the opportunity of putting in practice. They 
are quite aware of many and much-needed improvements, both in 
their construction and in their care and preservation. Up to the 
present time the compelling need has been, and for several years will 
be, continuity of line, higher grades, and standard sections. Those 
used provisionally are everywhere below those considered safe for 
great floods, and the present contents of levees are not more than GO 
per cent of what is considered necessary for satisfactory protection. 

Yet, behind this partial shelter population has increased, values 
have risen, wealth has accumulated, comfort and culture have devel¬ 
oped, and great railroad systems have extended at such a rate that 
it can be said that the reclamation of this region is one of the most- 
successful and beneficent public works now in progress. 


J. A. Ockerson, member American Society of Civil Engineers (by letter). 

In early days, prior to the advent of the levee system, the steam¬ 
boat man and the passenger going down the Mississippi River saw 
a narrow strip of cultivated land along the immediate banks of the 
river. They did not realize that for 40 to 60 miles beyond that 
strip the alluvial basin was practially uninhabited and its rich soil 

unfilled. _ . . 

They saw the fields covered with water during flood times, to a 
depth of perhaps 3 to 4 feet, and very limited areas in certain 
localities, developed bv radical changes in the regimen of the river, 
were known to be above water except during extraordinary floods. 
They did not appreciate the fact that perhaps 5 miles farther back 



236 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


the water was 10 feet or more in depth, that without levees to con¬ 
trol the floods these great interior basins could not be inhabited or 
cultivated. 

In the meantime, systematic levee work began, and year by 
year the levees are gradually being brought up to such height as will 
finally effectually carry the greatest floods safely to the sea. These 
same men notice that the flood water on the battures and the lands 
between the levees gradually becomes deeper and the levees grow 
higher, and they conclude that if the levees can ever be made to 
control the floods at all they will ultimately “ reach the tree tops in 
height.” They are fully convinced and most positive in their opinion 
that the increase in flood height is due to the raising of the river bed. 

To the engineer it is no surprise that there should be an increase 
in the height of a flood confined between levees from 1 to 5 miles 
apart over that of a flood confined only by the hills that limit the 
basins with a width of 40 to 60 miles. More than that, the engineer, 
in the beginning of the work, computed the heights which the max¬ 
imum confined flood w T ould ultimately reach, and the results have 
shown that his calculations are very near the mark. 

Every one familiar, even to a slight degree, with the physical 
characteristics of the river, has noticed the extraordinary local 
changes that occur in brief intervals of time. Very few, however, 
realize the fact that tangible changes in the general regimen of the 
river require long periods of time. 

The belief among laymen that there is a general progressive 
elevation of the bed of the stream going on, which is augmented by 
levees, is widespread. Statements have been made by those who 
ought to know better, that the bed of the river at New Orleans is 
higher than the adjacent land, while the fact is that the bed is some 
200 feet below the land. 

A former Secretary of War, in discussing this question with the 
writer, stated that he proposed to settle the vexing question him¬ 
self by “ measuring the river in several places.” Just what he 
intended to compare the measurements with, or how he proposed to 
eliminate the effect of purely local changes, does not appear. 

The statement that the Mississippi River Commission had already 
made many thousands of such measurements, covering some 425 
miles of river, may have had something to do with the abandonment 
of his project. 

Without any preconceived theory to prove, and with a view of 
simply ascertaining the facts in the case, the writer prepared, in 1894, 
a project for a resurvey of the river from the mouth of the Arkansas 
River to Donaldsonville—a distance of 425 miles—and this project 
was approved by the Mississippi River Commission. 

The first general survey had been made, much of it under the 
personal supervision of the writer, some 12 to 15 years prior to that 
time. This first survey comprised accurate lines of levels, with 
established bench marks at intervals of 3 miles. Each line of sound¬ 
ings across the river (at frequent intervals) had its water-surface 
elevation determined by levels, hence an accurate cross section of the 
bed could be plotted. Surveys made at the later date, referring to 
the same bench marks and the same datum, gave reliable data from 
which to determine the difference in conditions at the two epochs/ 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 237 

A careful comparison of the two would, of course, disclose any 
general changes of considerable magnitude in the elevation or capacity 
of the bed. 

The thousands of cross sections of the two surveys were carefully 
plotted, their respective areas measured, and their mean and maxi¬ 
mum depths determined. Then comparisons were made between 
individual sections and between corresponding groups of sections 
comprising successive pools and crossings. All this entailed an 
enormous amount of painstaking work, and the conclusions are as 
follows: 

The crests of the low-water bars, as well as the high-water bars, 
were found to be lower. About half of the total length resurveyed 
showed a depression of the thalweg, and about an equal amount 
showed a slight elevation, confined chiefly to the pools. 

The results reached by this investigation are not as specific as might 
be desired, but it does not seem possible that such great elevations 
of bed as would be required to account for increased flood heights 
could escape detection. 

Embracing, as it did, a comparison of 2,768 cross sections of the 
river, together with something like 150,000 elevations, it seems to 
prove beyond a reasonable doubt, if any such proof be really needed, 
that the elevation of a confined flood in the Mississippi is not due 
to the elevation of the bed of the river. 

There is a still more simple proof which should be satisfactory to 
all, even if highly prejudiced against a levee system. 

Gauges are established at itnervals along the river and are con¬ 
nected with several permanent bench marks in the immediate vicinity. 
Frequent inspections keep the gauge zeros at the same height from 
year to year. The readings are taken by reliable observers both morn¬ 
ing and"evening, and a continuous record is thus maintained through¬ 
out both high and low waters. 

These records show in the most positive way that the low waters 
of recent years are several feet lower than those of earlier years, with 
equal volume of flow and with equal channel depths. 

Only one explanation of this condition is possible. It points uner¬ 
ringly to a depression of the bed of the stream, and should effectually 
set at rest any fears that there is such a thing as a tangible progres¬ 
sive elevation of the river bed. 

During the height of the flood of 1903 the Mississippi River Com¬ 
mission viewed the river from St. Louis to the Gulf of Mexico. Any¬ 
one who could have seen, as they did, hundreds of miles of levee in¬ 
tact, the farmers behind them busy plowing and planting, the fruit 
trees in bloom, the stock fattening on the green herbage, would surely 
have been impressed with the efficacy, the necessity of levees. 

Add to this the knowledge that the levee system had served to fill 
with thrifty settlers the fertile basin where life without levees would 
be impossible, and it becomes incomprehensible how anyone can op¬ 
pose the completion of the levee system, unless it be on the score of 
ignorance as to the facts in the case. . 

Contrast the peaceful condition of things where levee protection 
exists with the suffering and misery during a flood along the un¬ 
leveed portions of the river, as revealed by a trip along the river 

30573°—H. Rep. 300, 63-2, pt 2-16 


238 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI BIVEB. 


during any flood, and no argument is needed to demonstrate the 
wisdom of a perfected levee system. 

That occasional breaks should occur in levees, partially completed 
as to both height and section, is by no means surprising. They are 
to be expected, and they may occur under great stress on rare occa¬ 
sions even in a completed system. But the area flooded and the dam¬ 
age done on such occasions will be trivial as compared to that of the 
general flooding of the entire basins under the “ no levee ” system. 

The argument that the floods should be permitted to fill the basins 
in order that the sediment might build them up, so as to reach ulti¬ 
mately a height above overflow, has no substantial facts to justify it. 
If it were practicable to deposit on the land all the sediment carried 
by the stream, it would still take a very great number of years to raise 
the general elevation of the 30,000 square miles of basins to any tan¬ 
gible extent. Then, too, the deposit could never reach the height of 
the rare, exceptional floods, and if the doctrine is true that the bed 
of the river is rising, the relative height of bed, banks, and flood 
would remain the same and overflows would always continue. 

There can be no reasonable doubt as to the possibility of con¬ 
structing an effective levee system. Far more elements of uncer¬ 
tainty are involved in many engineering problems that have been 
carried to successful completion. 

The engineers of this progressive age will not falter in their con¬ 
viction that the floods of even the mighty Mississippi can be effectu¬ 
ally controlled, and it is not likely that a nation with such great 
resources as ours, which has undertaken to make the deserts blossom, 
will hesitate to contribute generously to a project which has for its 
object the conversion of the vast alluvial basins into fertile fields 
tilled by a prosperous people, happy and contented in homes of 
plenty. 


Engineer Office, U. S. Army, 

St. Louis , Mo ., February 12,190b. 

Hon. Jos. E„ Ransdell. 

My Dear Sir : I have just received your letter of the 9th instant 
requesting my views regarding the much disputed question of levees 
and elevation of the river bed. In answer, I beg leave to state my 
conviction that the levees do not permanently raise the bed of the 
stream. It is, of course, obvious that, if waters, which at flood 
spread out under natural conditions over a width of 10 miles, are 
confined between levees separated by not more than 4 or 5 miles, 
there is bound to be an increase of flood height of the water, a fact 
which is becoming well known; but, at the same time, it must be 
remembered that this raising of the flood surface increases the 
velocity of the current and gives it greater scouring power and 
greater capacity to carry sediment. So it will be found that the 
total amount of sediment carried to the sea will not be less but 
rather more than if the floods could spread out over wide areas with 
more sluggish current. In fact, I believe that levees increase the 
flood heights, but actually decrease the low-water plane, or, in other 
words, depress the bed of the stream. The River Po, in Italy, is 
often quoted as an instance of levees raising the bed of the stream, 



FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 239 

and in actually crossing the Po, as I did in 1883, it seemed to me 
that the stream was really artifically elevated above the surrounding 
country, held in by its earthen walls, but the true condition was not 
what it seemed to be. The river was at flood, and, of course, the 
flood surface was far above where it would have been under natural 
conditions* but measurements made about that time, I am told, 
showed that the bottom of the stream was below its original level. 

Hoping that my views are presented clearly, and that my reasons 
therefor may be understood by yourself and the committee, believe me, 
Very sincerely, yours, 

Thomas L. Casey, 

Major, Corps of Engineers, 
Member Mississippi River Commission . 


Mississippi River Commission, 
Chicago, III., February 12,190Jj. 

Hon. Joseph E. Ransdell, 

House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. 

Dear Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of 
the 9th instant, in which you request me to state my views and my 
reasons for entertaining them upon the question, “ Do levees cause 
the bed of the Mississippi to rise? ” 

Persons not familiar with the Mississippi may perhaps wonder 
why there should be any doubt upon this subject—wh}^ the facts 
should not be so well known that there can be no room for discus¬ 
sion. The explanation lies in the unstable character of the river 
bed. The bed is composed of an alternating succession of bars and 
pools, all in motion downstream. At one stage the bars build up and 
the pools scour; at another this process is reversed, and there is a 
leveling action. The river also has a motion sidewaj^s, due to erosion 
on one side and accretion on the other. Evidently any general law, 
such as the raising or lowering of the river bed, if there be such a 
law, can be detected only after prolonged observations and intelligent 
study. 

The Mississippi River Commission has given much attention to 
these observations. In 1894, 1895, and 1896 a complete resurvey of 
the river where most completely leveed was made from the mouth of 
the White to Donaldsonville, La., a distance of 472 miles, and care¬ 
ful comparisons were made with the previous survey of 1881, 1882, 
and 1883. Nearly 3,000 cross-sections of the river, with about 150,000 
elevations, were compared, involving an enormous amount of labor. 
The result was to show no evidence whatever of a rising of the bed. 

On the other hand, the gauge records give some evidence that the 
bed has been lowered by the levees. A careful comparison of the 
low-water readings of 10 gauges between Cairo, Ill., and Carrollton, 
La., was made by Maj. Harrod, for the periods 1872 to 1887, and 
1887 to 1902, using the average for the 16 years of each period. As 
a general rule, the low-water surface was at a lower level during 
the second period than during the first. That there was no great 
difference in the quantity of water flowing is shown by the fact that 
the reading of the Cairo gauge was essentially the same during the 
two periods. 



240 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

Theoretically, I should expect the levees to have a tendency to 
lower the bed in some small degree, but that the amount would-be 
so small as to be of no practical importance. That they should have 
the effect of raising it I can not conceive. The result of all the 
observations on the river so far is that there has been but little 
change, and that that little has been in the direction of lowering 
the bed. 

Yours, very respectfully, 

O. H. Ernst, 

Colonel, Corps of Engineers, 
President Mississippi River Commission. 


New York City, February 15 , 1904 • 
Dear Sir: Your favor of the 12th is received. My opinion that 
levees have not caused a rise in the bed of the Mississippi is 
unchanged. 

Very truly, yours, 

C. B. Comstock. 

Mr. Patrick Henry, 

Interstate Mississippi River Improvement. 


War Department, 

Office of the Chief of Staff, 

W ashing ton, February 16, 1904. 

My Dear Mr. Ransdell: I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your 
kind letter of February 15 asking my opinion as to whether the 
construction of levees uoon the Mississippi River has a tendency 
to elevate the bed of the river. 

This subject was treated very exhaustively in 1890 by Gen. Com¬ 
stock, then president of the Mississippi River Commission. The par¬ 
ticular subject of your inquiry is referred to in Gen. Comstock’s 
paper, and will be found on page 3098 of the Annual Report of the 
Mississippi River Commission, 1890. I concur in the opinion therein 
expressed, which I have held from the beginning of my familiarity 
with the Mississippi River. 

I do not think it can be doubted that the effect of levees has been 
to increase the flood heights; the result at your own home, Lake 
Providence, exemplifies this in a marked degree. It does not neces¬ 
sarily follow that there has been any elevation of the bed of the 
river at low stage. I do not believe that there has been, nor do I 
believe there has been a progressive and continuous elevation of the 
bed for any long stretch of the river at any point in its course from 
Memphis through the levee district. 

If you are not familiar with Gen. Comstock’s paper, I advise you 
to consult it, because he includes in his examination not only "the 
Mississippi River, but the Po, Hoang-ho, and the Yellow River, the 
most prominent examples of sediment-bearing streams. 

Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

G. L. Gillespie, 

Major General, General Staff. 

Hon. J. E. Ransdell, 

House of Representatives. 




Appendix F . 

IMPROVEMENT OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


Committee on Rivers and Harbors, 

House of Representatives, 
Washington, I). C., Tuesday , February <2, 190If. 

The committee met at 10.30 o’clock a. in., Hon. Theodore E. Burton 
in the chair. 

The Chairman. Mr. Parker, how much time is required by you? 

Mr. Parker. I should say that we have six speakers, and they 
will take not exceeding 15 minutes apiece. 

Mr. Patrick Henry. Mr. Chairman, there was a great levee con¬ 
vention held in New Orleans in October, which was attended by 
over 1,000 registered delegates from 1G6 cities and municipalities 
of this country, from 22 States. They passed a resolution which 
this delegation has been appointed to present to this commitee, and 
1 will introduce to you, Mr. Chairman, and to the committee, Mr. 
John M. Parker, the chairman of the committee, who is probably 
now the largest cotton commission merchant in the world, young 
as he is. 

Statement of Mr. John M. Parker. 

Mr. Parker. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee: In 
October of last year, in New Orleans, we had one of the largest 
nonpolitical conventions ever held in the United States, to which 
were appointed over 3,000 delegates, representing every branch of 
industry in this country. Of this number w T e had probably a thou¬ 
sand who were actually present, representing over 106 of the largest 
cities of the United States and comprising 27 different States. 

The proceedings of that convention have been communicated in 
detail to each and every member of the committee, so that any fur¬ 
ther details from me on that matter would be useless. Speaking 
from a business man’s standpoint, I do not think there is any sub¬ 
ject in the United States that is of greater importance than the rivers 
and harbors which are directly and closely affiliated with our levees 
down there. 

Few gentlemen who have not been down there and seen our levees 
and the conditions behind them can appreciate the conditions and pos¬ 
sibilities of that country. To-day you find that England and France 
and Russia are spending millions of dollars in order that they may 
be able to raise cotton in competition with the American product. 
There is probably no place on the face of the globe that naturally 
offers the facilities that Mississippi does. Twenty-five per cent of 
the land available there is now in cultivation, and with protection to 
that area down there we could probably put in 15,000,000 acres addi¬ 
tional. That to-day is largely typical swamp land, representing the 

241 



242 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

fertility and deposits of silt of centuries upon centuries. One of the 
great reasons now that every acre of that land is not put in cultivation 
is that, with the vagaries and changes in the Mississippi River, people 
are afraid to come there and put their money into it and develop it. 
That is one reason why this convention came together down there and 
appealed to the United States. That, Mr. Chairman, was one of the 
strong reasons why the people of that region appealed to the United 
States to come down and give them protection, either by taking abso¬ 
lute control of the country or making such appropriations as will en¬ 
able us to continue the work that we have undertaken, and guaran¬ 
teeing safety. 

We are not unaware that this committee has done a great deal, and 
the highest tribute that can be paid to the efficiency of their aid and 
the ability of the men who have conducted that work is the statement 
that no levee that has ever been erected under the auspices of the 
United States Government has ever failed to serve its purpose and 
to continue to do so. There are strong reasons why that statement is 
a fact. Our old levees—many of them levees that have been built a 
little at a time and from time to time—whereas the Government 
levees have been erected by the United States engineers with plenty 
of means to see that the levees are thoroughly and solidly built and 
properly constructed and are properly protected after they are built. 

We do not come here exactly in the line of being suppliants, be¬ 
cause we have put up $2 for every dollar that has been paid out by 
the United States Government for this purpose, but there are thou¬ 
sands of acres in that delta that are not worth over $2 an acre, 
which, if put into cultivation, as they certainly would be the moment 
that it was known that the United States Government was going to 
protect these levees, would rise in value to $50 an acre. Many of those 
people own their lands, and are not men who are actuated in the 
slightest degree by personal interests. We occupy down there a 
unique position, inasmuch as we sell everything we raise. We furnish 
the largest exports to maintain the balance of trade of the world for 
the United States, and in return we buy nearly every dollar’s worth 
that we use. We are the largest customers for the farmers of Ohio 
and Tennessee and Kentucky for their stock; we keep the mills of 
Pittsburgh running to furnish us with cotton ties and coal; we are 
the largest consumers of machinery in the Southern States; we buy 
everything that we use; and, over and beyond that, that river that 
flows by our doors has more importance and means more to the 
farmers of the West than anything else, because it furnishes parity 
of transportation rates and forces them to give us reasonable rates. 

I do not know whether you have noticed the enormous strides that 
in recent years New Orleans has made commercially. This has been 
largely due to the fact that we had a few years ago no railroads at all 
through that delta, and now we have five trunk lines—lines whose 
stocks and bonds are owned all over the United States. As a prac¬ 
tical cotton planter, who has been in that business for 20 years, I 
would say that we think that this year the Mississippi Delta alone 
w T ill make 1,000,000 bales of cotton. I think, sir, that with protection 
from the United States Government—simply the assurance of this 
committee that you gentlemen believe that the requests we make are 
fair, and you believe that you are better able to take charge of those 
levees than the separate States or than the separate levee boards 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 243 

which have under former methods of work undertaken it—I believe, 
if the commission of the United States Government makes the an¬ 
nouncement to the world, the delta will rapidly populate and be one 
of the most prosperous parts of the United States. 

Statement of Mr. M. F. Smith. 

. Mr. Smith. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I will read the resolu¬ 
tions adopted by the Interstate Mississippi River Improvement and 
Levee Convention: 


Resolutions Adopted iiy the Interstate Mississippi River Improvement and 
Levee Convention Held at New Orleans, La., October 27, 1903. 

The committee on resolutions begs leave to submit the following report: 

First. After years of actual observation and experience, and supported by 
the opinions of all engineers, whether from the Engineer Corps of the Army 
or from civil life, who have been directly connected with the work of levee 
construction, we desire to affirm that we have the most absolute confidence 
in the sufficiency of levees, when built according to correct standards, to protect 
the Mississippi Valley from overflow. 

In support of this declaration we beg leave to submit the following facts, 
which have been fully established: An elaborate and careful investigation, 
made under the direction of the Mississippi River Commission, wholly disproves 
the notion, which still prevails to a considerable extent, that the immediate 
effect of levee construction is to cause the bed of the Mississippi River to rise. 
If this were true it would necessarily follow that the levees would need to 
be continuously strengthened and elevated, and thus all hope of protection 
would have to be abandoned. 

In the years 1SS1, 1832, and 1883 an elaborate survey was made of the river 
bed from Cairo to the Passes, a distance of 1,063 miles. Four cross sections 
to the mile were made and 75 soundings were made to each line. The result 
of this survey was carefully platted, recorded, and preserved. 

In the years 1S94, 1S95, and 1S90, after the lapse of a period of 13 years, a 
still more elaborate survey was made of that part of the river bed between the 
Arkansas River and Donaldsville, La., a distance of 472 miles. 

While local changes in the river bed are necessarily constantly happening 
by reason of the gradual movement downstream of the bends, and accompany¬ 
ing bars and pools, they of themselves signify nothing. Yet a comparison such 
as that which has been drawn from the result of the two extensive surveys men¬ 
tioned would necessarily furnish proof that the bed of the river was rising 
if such were the truth. So far from the comparison indicating such result from 
levee construction, it was discovered that there is a general tendency to the 
establishment of a more uniform channel in depth and width and with greater 
capacity. 

The comparison also brought to light the fact that the crests of the low-water 
bars, as well as those of the high-water bars, have been lowered. 

If we turn to the evidence afforded by the records of the numerous gauges 
established along the river, which have also been carefully recorded and pre¬ 
served, we find that the low waters now are several feet lower than they were 
in the years preceding active levee construction, accompanied by an equal 
volume of water and an equal depth of channel. This unquestionably shows 
that the effect of levee construction has been to bring about a gradual de¬ 
pression of the river bed. This effect has been produced within the past few 
years, for prior to that time there was no such restraint of the flood waters as 
could leave any impress whatever, one way or the other, upon the river bed. 

The notion that the bed of the river is rising has been somewhat revived 
since the flood of 1903, because of the fact that at certain points the gauge 
reading showed not only unusually great elevation of the flood height, but 
irregular elevation. From this it has been deduced by some that at those places 
where the gauge readings were the highest there had been, as the result of 
levee construction, an unusual deposit of silt, thus raising the bed of the river. 
A simpie explanation will destroy this theory: 

In 1880, when the levees were by no means continuous and were altogether 
insufficient to affect the flood plane in any degree, the first thoughtful and scien- 


244 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


tific observation of the river began. This was because of the fact that the 
Mississippi River Commission then entered upon the discharge of its duties. 
It was noted that the rise and fall of the river was very different at different 
poincs. It was observed that the greater annual oscillations, which were of 
about 45 feet, were to be found at or near the mouths of the tributaries, such 
as the Ohio, the St. Francis, the Arkansas, and the Red Rivers. It was also 
observed that the lesser annual oscillations, which were of about 35 feet, were 
to be found at intermediate points along ihe fronts of the great basins drained 
by . these tributaries—as. for example, at Fulton, Memphis, Greenville, Lake 
Providence, and St. Joseph. 

A careful platting of the gauge readings at that time thus exhibited a smooth 
and regular high-water slope but an exceedingly irregular low-water slope. 
This was caused by considerable depression of the river bed at or near the 
junction with the tributaries of the river, and a considerable elevation of the 
bed along the fronts of the great basins between them. For this reason it was 
noted that the rise in high water was much-greater where the bed of the river 
was depressed at or near the points of junction with its tributaries. 

It was observed that the discharge at high water at these points because of 
these depressions was something like 1,500.000 cubic feet per second, while 
along the intervening basin fronts the discharge was several hundred thousand 
feet less. This difference in discharge, ranging from a quarter to a half million 
feet, was because of the escape of water over the river banks along these basin 
fronts. This escape of water undoubtedly caused the elevation of the bed along 
these fronts, which was noted, and we feel justified in affirming that when this 
escape shall have been permanently prevented by the construction of suitable 
levees these elevated portions of the river bed will be gradually lowered to 
conform to the bed at the points of junction with tributaries, thus making a 
regular low-water slope. When this shall have been accomplished undoubtedly 
the lowering of the river bed will go steadily on. 

It has also been noted that during the flood of 1903 the heights attained by 
the flood in excess of those hitherto recorded were greatest at the points along 
these basin fronts; as, for instance, at Memphis, where the rise was 3 feet 
greater than any ever known. 

The excess of flood height at the points of depression referred to was nothing 
like so extreme. 

We therefore declare that, in our judgment, there is no warrant whatever 
for the assertion that the effect of levee construction has been or will be to 
raise the bed of the river, but, on the contrary, it is our definite conviction that 
the effect will be to cause a general and considerable lowering of the bed. 

EFFICIENCY OF LEVEES. 

Second. We also desire to express our firm opposition to all schemes for 
reducing flood heights of the lower river by the construction of reservoirs or 
so-called outlets. We refer to and indorse fully all that is said upon his sub¬ 
ject by the very careful and able report submitted in 1S9S by the Commerce 
Committee of the United States Senate, which is so complete and elaborate as 
to exhaust the consideration of the question. We will add that all schemes 
which have ever been proposed for the relief of the river in times of flood by 
outlets or reservoirs would either prove wholly inefficient or would cost such 
vast sums and require such constant care and expenditures as to entitle them 
to no consideration. 

Third. While the flood of 1903 was very nearly as great as that of 1S97, 
and while the flood plane was greatly in excess of that of 1S97, the protection 
afforded in 1903 over that of 1S97 is so great as to satisfy the minds of all 
impartial investigators that so far as the test has gone the principle of pro¬ 
tection by levee construction has been amply vindicated. In 1903 there were 
but 6 crevasses as against 43 in 1S97. With each recurring flood since levee 
construction began in earnest the number of crevasses has grown smaller and 
smaller, and the protection afforded has grown greater and greater. As a 
result, investments of capital in the Mississippi Valley have increased until 
they are almost fabulous. The low-lying back lands, which prior to that date 
were regarded as valueless, are fast being occupied and converted into homes for 
the benefit, of our people. Towns and cities have sprung up in every direction. 
Railroads now traverse the valley, so that nearly every part of it is now 
reached by them. All of this affords evidence of the strongest possible con¬ 
viction on the part of the people that the time is sure to come when they will 
have absolute protection from the floods of the river. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


245 


Iheorists may argue against the efficiency of levees, but they do so in vain. 
The strong common sense of the people responds by rejecting their theories. 
The work must go on. It can not now stop. Too much money has been in¬ 
vested in levees to suffer them to be destroyed, and unless they are prosecuted 
to completion they will be destroyed. The enormous investments made because 
of them, and in reliance upon their completion, can not in good faith be aban¬ 
doned now to the devastation of the floods. We presume that no man can be 
found at this stage of the work to suggest that the plan of protection by levees 
should be abandoned, at least until a full and complete test has shown them 
to be impracticable. 


MISSISSIPPI RIVER COMMISSION. 

Fourth. The following abstract of the report of the Mississippi River Com¬ 
mission, just made and hardly yet published, gives the very latest opinion of 
the commission upon the levee question and is so comprehensive and pertinent 
that we give it at length, to wit: 

“ The past flood established more clearly than has any previous one both the 
importance and the practicability of a complete and sufficient levee system. 
In its present condition, incomplete both as regards extension and dimensions, 
it gave substantial protection to three-quarters of the alluvial valley and its 
interests, which under equal flood conditions without levees would have been 
a lake from 20 to SO miles wide from Cairo to the Gulf. The improvement made 
during the past six years has reduced the number of crevasses between Cairo 
and New Orleans from 38 to 6. Of the area overflowed this year, five-eighths 
was the direct result of backwater from the lower ends of the basins and over¬ 
flow through unbuilt parts of projected lines and only three-eighths from breaks 
in the levees, notwithstanding their unfinished condition as regards both grade 
and section. 

“ Under these circumstances the importance of the earliest practicable com¬ 
pletion of the work is apparent. If the flood damages of 1903 may be approxi¬ 
mately estimated at $5,000,000, the previous expenditure of that sum in perma¬ 
nent work would have largely if not entirely prevented them. Every year’s 
delay in completion incurs the risk of similar loss. When the system shall 
have been completed the cost will have been increased by many millions of 
dollars and the development of the valley delayed by many years of anxiety 
and disaster, which could have been saved by continuous work on a scale com¬ 
mensurate with the importance and magnitude of the improvement. The State 
levee districts realize this. Most of them have anticipated their revenues as 
far as practicable, and several have now under consideration plans for such 
increase of resources applicable to the work as will shorten the time of comple¬ 
tion. The commission is so impressed with this view of the subject that it 
considers it for the best interest of the work to now make contracts for levee 
construction to the extent of $2,000,000, as provided for in the river and har¬ 
bor act of June 30, 1905, and June 30, 1908. Furthermore, it suggests that if 
Congress should think proper to make additional provisions for levee construc¬ 
tion during the fiscal years ending June 30, 1905, and June 30, 1908, the sum 
of $2,000,000, in addition to the amounts already provided, can be judiciously 
and advantageously expended during each year.” 

CONSERVATION OF COMMERCE. 

Fifth. In addition to the protection of the lands of the Mississippi Valley 
from the floods, it is a matter of supreme importance that the mind of the 
Nation should be kept constantly advised of the commercial importance of the 
Mississippi River as a highway of commerce. The marvelous growth of rail¬ 
road building within the last quarter of a century has so diverted the attention 
of the public from the Mississippi River as a means of transportation that 
it has been to some extent lost sight of. It has remained, however, a constant 
safeguard against undue rates of transportation and promises in the near future 
to become once more as active a factor in interstate commerce as it ever has 
been in the past. This is owing, first, to the almost unparalleled increase in in¬ 
dustrial activity throughout the valley, and, second, to the demonstration which 
has been made in recent years that by means of hydraulic dredges a sufficient 
channel for low-w T ater navigation can be secured and maintained. We earnestly 
express the hope that the work of the Mississippi River Commission in this 
direction be pressed as rapidly as can be properly done, with a view to opening 
up the great river once more, so that the people may fully enjoy the extraordi- 


246 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

nary facilities which it is capable of supplying for the cheap and steady ex¬ 
change of their commodities. Levee construction is undoubtedly essential, 
even if all thought of reclaiming the fertile lands of the valley should be 
abandoned, for without levees all river commerce during periods of overflow 
would necessarily cease. 


A GRIEVOUS BURDEN. 

Sixth. The work of levee construction has been carried on by the cooperation 
of the United States Government through the agency of the Mississippi River 
Commission with the levee organizations of the several riparian States. Of 
the amount expended in this work, the Government has contributed, in round 
figures, about one-third. The people have subjected themselves to such heavy 
taxation in furnishing their contributions until they have already overburdened 
their resources in this regard. It is the opinion of the residents of the great 
valley that the difficulties and magnitude of the work and the vast benefits 
to result from it are such that in common justice the burden should be placed 
upon the strong shoulders of the Federal Government, and that the work 
should be urged to speedy completion. By suitable annual appropriations this 
can be accomplished, thus securing not only safety but great economy. There¬ 
fore : 


DUTY OF THE GOVERNMENT. 

Resolved , That in the judgment of this convention the protection of the Mis¬ 
sissippi Valley from floods is of such national importance as not only to justify 
but to make it the duty of the General Government to undertake it and press 
it to the speediest possible completion. If for any reason the exercise of sole 
jurisdiction at this time by the General Government should not be deemed 
advisable then this convention urges most earnestly that Congress make, at its 
approaching session, such appropriations as are recommended by the Mississippi 
River Commission in its recent report. 

THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN. 

Resolved further, That the system of river improvements in the Valley of the 
Mississippi from its headwaters to the Gulf and in the Valley of the Ohio and 
other tributaries now provided for and those which may hereafter be provided 
for by Congress, under the supervision of the United States engineers, meets 
our hearty commendation and should be prosecuted to completion without 
unnecessary delay. 

Resolved , That the attention of Congress is invited to the serious disasters 
which have befallen those residing at or near St. Louis, Kansas City, and other 
localities by reasons of the recent great floods, and the Secretary of War is 
respectfully requested to cause an inquiry to be made with a view to the prep¬ 
arations of suitable plans for the prevention of a recurrence of such injuries. 

Be it resolved, That the convention of delegates representing the States of 
the great Mississippi Valley from Duluth to the Gulf of Mexico gives its un¬ 
qualified approval to the movement for the construction of a waterway con¬ 
necting the Great Lakes at the north with the Mississippi River and the Gulf 
of Mexico at the south. 

We recognize the expenditure of $35,000,000 by the sanitary district of 
Chicago as a practical demonstration in the furtherance of this project. We 
express the hope that the Senators and Representatives in Congress from the 
various States represented in this convention will give their encouragement and 
assistance to congressional legislation in favor of the completion of the deep 
waterway, to which the Mississippi Valley States have already given their ap¬ 
proval, and to which the State of Illinois and the sanitary district of Chicago 
are committed as a matter of policy and by great financial expenditures already 
made. 

Resolved, That it is the sense of this convention that the work of the Inter¬ 
state Mississippi River Improvement and Levee Association, under the wise and 
able guidance of its president, Charles Scott, has been of great and lasting 
value, and its continuance is a matter of vital importance, and that this organi¬ 
zation, as it exists, with Charles Scott as its president and J. W. Bryant and 
W. A. Everman as its secretaries, be continued, and that Charles Scott be author¬ 
ized to appoint three members from each State as members of the executive 
committee of said association. 






FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 247 

Mr. Henry. You will next be addressed, Mr. Chairman and gentle- 
men, by Mr. Charles S. Fairchild, of New York. 

Statement of Mr. Charles S. Fairchild, of New York. 

Mr. Fairchild. Mr. Chairman, in the last few years I have had 
occasion to go to the South and to New Orleans on business and 
pleasure a number of times. I have been in New Orleans at the time 
of this great convention in October, which is spoken of, and from 
all that I learned there, all that I heard, and from my own reflec¬ 
tions, I have been profoundly impressed with the importance of this 
subject, and led to the belief that it was the supreme interest of the 
people of our whole country to take care that the best was done along 
the Mississippi River for the protection of its adjoining lands and 
for the improvement of its waterway that could be done under the 
teachings of science and experience. 

This crop, this great cotton crop which they raise in that country, 
and the extension of which is possible beyond anything that we know 
now, is of vast importance to every part of this country. A failure 
of the cotton crop or a permanent diminution of the amount produced 
would make it necessary for the people of this country to readjust 
its whole financial relations with the world. It is, as the chairman 
of this committee which appears before you, Mr. Parker, has said, 
the thing that more than anything else maintains our balance or 
trade. It is the one crop in which the United States has practically 
the monopoly of the world. It is the one thing by extending which 
we can command the business of the world. We have rivals in every¬ 
thing else that we produce. In cotton our rivals are but few, and 
those poor and feeble. Therefore it behooves us to nurse and care 
for this unique thing which gives the United States so commanding 
a position in the world. 

Then see all of our people who are more immediately interested 
in it. Think of the effect in every mill town in New England of the 
amount of the cotton crop; think of the effect, the possible effect, 
upon them now of a partial failure of cotton crops during the last 
few years; think of the thousands and thousands of people all over 
our northern country who are so immediately affected in their daily 
lives by this; and then, logically, with all else that we have done and 
are doing we should above ali things promote the welfare of this 
Mississippi Valley. Think of what we have done in the past; think 
of the great sums of money for which the United States obligated 
itself to build railways across the Continent; think of the vast em¬ 
pires of land which we gave away to build those railways; think of 
all that we are doing and proposing to do for irrigation in the great 
West, very properly and wisely, because it has been demonstrated 
that that must go beyond State lines. Think of all that we are 
doing to improve our harbors on our eastern coast. Why? Why, 
for the benefit of the wheat fields of the great West, the dairies of 
our East and Middle West, in order that they may have a ready and 
easy access to the ocean. 

Think of the great enterprise upon which we are entering in 
building a canal; to build a canal to connect the Atlantic and the 
Pacific. Think of what we are doing in the far East, in China, in 
extending our treaty relations, in taking up a position where we will 


248 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


have a greater influence and a greater access than ever before. Why ? 
For what? To do what with them? To sell things to those people. 
What things? Why, the main thing w^e are to sell them is cotton— 
cotton goods. That is why we are willing to almost strain our rela¬ 
tions with some of the nations of the world, that we may keep open 
markets. What we w T ish to sell in those markets is cotton goods. 
Now, if we do not take care of the production of the raw material 
of the cotton goods, all that we are doing in that respect is almost 
waste time, because we Tvill cease to be a great cotton manufacturing 
country. 

Now, all of these considerations lead me to the conclusion that 
logically, consistently with all that we are doing in these directions 
of which I have spoken, we should go on to do that which science 
and experience tells us will be most beneficient and most speedy for 
the extension of the production of this great staple. I am sure that 
there is no one in the North who, when he fairly considers the sub¬ 
ject—when he considers the relations which it bears to all of our in¬ 
terests; when he considers the vast market which it affords for all 
of our northern products in the South, giving a great interstate trade; 
w T hen he considers the importance of it to our own interests, in con¬ 
nection not only with our own consumption but with that of the 
world—will begrudge any expenditure this committee may consider 
it necessary to make to speedily and efficiently do that work that 
should be done along the Mississippi River. Further than that, by 
cheapening the means of transportation, by still further increasing 
this enormous commerce which now goes out from that Mississippi 
River, you will be conferring a benefit upon the remotest parts of our 
Middle West. 

Therefore, gentlemen, it is with great pleasure and satisfaction 
that I have come here at the invitation of these gentlemen to say 
my few words and to urge you to do all that you possibly can to 
speedily complete this work, because every year that it is delayed is 
an enormous loss to the West. 

Mr. Parker. I will introduce to you next, Mr. Chairman, Mr. A. S. 
Caldwell, of Memphis. 

Statement of Mr. A. S. Caldwell. 

Mr. Caldwell. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I want to say that 
I am not a public speaker, and I want to save just as much of your 
time as possible, because I know that it is valuable, and in order to 
save hesitation and repetition I have made a written outline of the 
few things which I have to say to you, and I assure you that they 
are not very many. 

In supporting the resolutions of the great convention which was 
recently held in New Orleans, I wish to give you the viewpoint of a 
business man, of one who, in 1882, left Indiana and cast his lot with 
the people of the great Mississippi Delta. While I live in the city 
of Memphis, my separate business interests are in the Delta itself. 

This territory, which we are asking you now and which you know 
we have been asking you for many years to assist in protecting, has, I 
believe, about 19,000,000 acres of land; and I think there is less than 
one-third of that area that is in actual cultivation, and that third I 
know is very sparsely settled and very poorly improved, because of 




FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


249 


frequent overflows. Now, in these times, when all the great nations 
of the world are striving after enlarged territorial possessions and 
hesitating at the expenditure of no amount of money in their pur¬ 
chase nor human lives in their conquest, is not this territory of itself, 
irrespective of the navigation of the Mississippi River, worthy of the 
attention of Congress, not only because of the increased population 
which will come and the increased commerce which Mr. Fairchild 
has so ably spoken to you about, and the increased wealth, but in order 
to maintain the supremacy of this country in the production of 
cotton ? 

Just now both Germany and England are giving a good deal of 
attention to the development of cotton fields in their colonies and in 
their various spheres of influence, and they are expending vast sums 
of money in this work. It is within the year that an agent of the 
German Government called upon me in the city of Memphis and told 
me that he had been representing for quite a long time the German 
Government in German East Africa in developing that country, and 
he wanted to pump me about cotton growing in the United States, 
and he wanted to get as much information as he could. He wanted 
to buy cottonseed and he wanted me to recommend to him white men 
who understood cotton culture and were open to employment by the 
German Government and who were willing to go way out there and 
open up that new country for cotton growing. Well, I told him all I 
knew, and I have no doubt that those fields as well as others will be 
greatly increased ; although I believe with Mr. Fairchild that if the 
proper thing is done in this country we need never fear competition 
in cotton culture. 

But the most important matter for the consideration of our people 
is the present condition of the cotton trade. On the basis of prices 
which have been obtained for that part of the present cotton crop 
which has been up to the present time marketed, and taking the 
present value of cotton as a basis for estimating that which is to be 
marketed from now until the end of the year, and taking the Govern¬ 
ment’s estimate of the size of the crop, say, 12.000.000 bales, as another 
basis, this present crop of cotton and seed will produce $750,000,000. 
Now, not all of that will have been received by the Southern planters, 
but nearly all of it will have been received by citizens of the United 
States. A little bit of it has gotten away to our friends of England, 
who bought cotton early. But not a great deal. 

Now. it seems to me that a serious question, and one that I have 
not heard brought up before this committee, or in this convention, 
is the fact that all of the people of the United States who consume 
cotton—cotton goods—and that is practically nearly all of them, and 
especially the wage-earning class, the poorer classes, of our coun¬ 
try, have got to pay and have paid the enhanced prices of cotton by 
virtue of this short crop; and that may seem to you. without study, 
to be a small thing, but, if you knew the advance in the price of 
cotton goods, based on the present value of the raw material, you 
could see that it is a very serious thing, and that many people at 
present prices will not be able to get as many cotton goods as they 
would under what I call normal conditions—that is, when cotton is 
about 8 or 9 cents a pound. 

Now. gentlemen, would it not be infinitelv better for us to get 
that $750,000,000 out of a crop of 15,000,000 bales at 8 cents per 


250 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI KIVEE. 

pound—and that is about what 15,000,000 bales produces—rather 
than to get that large sum of money out of 10,000,000 bales of cotton 
at that very large price? 

Is that not a matter absolutely of interest to every single person 
in the United States, irrespective of where he lives or what he does? 
But you must not stop at the contemplation of a crop of 15,000,000 
bales, because the steady increase in the annual consumption of cot¬ 
ton makes it quite sure that it will be only a few years before 
15,000,000 bales will be as short a crop in that day as 10,000,000 
bales is to-day. 

I think it is generally conceded that the consumption of cotton 
at moderate prices has now overtaken production, and that the 
largest cotton crop we ever raised, that of a few years ago, about 
11,250,000 bales, would, if produced this next season, sell for at 
least 12 cents a pound; and if the conditions of the world remain 
normal, many people believe that an 11,250,000-bale crop would 
sell for more than 12 cents. So that in the last very few } r ears—I 
think it is only three or four—what was the largest crop of cotton 
that was ever made, and which was talked about as a tremendous 
crop, has in that very short time down to the present time that I 
am talking to you, almost become a short crop. So that if we are 
to think about the material welfare of the citizens of this whole 
country, and what they are to pay for an article of clothing that 
probably they use more than any other article of clothing, we must 
prepare in this country, unless we voluntarily give it to other nations 
in the world, larger cotton crops. 

Perhaps you may think that 18-cent cotton is the result of specu¬ 
lation. That is what I believe July cotton sold for yesterday, and 
by July cotton I do not mean speculative cotton, I mean cotton to be 
actually delivered in July from plantations or from interior points, 
wherever it may be now, to the particular market where that price 
was made. You may think that that high price of cotton is the 
result of speculation, but, gentlemen, you would be wrong. That is 
not the case. It is directly the result of too little cotton. As a busi¬ 
ness man, who has had a great many years’ experience with cotton 
and really ample opportunity to judge and observe, I should say it 
is the steady annual increase of consumption in the larger annual 
ratio than production. I can not help but be impressed with the 
gravity of the situation, and I do not believe that I am sounding a 
false alarm when I say I think it is well worthy of the attention of 
Congress and of this committee which has it so largely in its power 
to prevent the people of this country from carrying the present bur¬ 
den, and possibly relieve them of a heavier burden in the future. 

To me the question does not seem to be one of soliciting you gen¬ 
tlemen for $1,000,000 or $2,000,000 or $3,000,000 this year or next 
year or the year after, nor does it occur to me at all as a question in 
which you should put the relative position of the great Mississippi 
River with the other rivers and harbors of the country. I know that 
there are other rivers and harbors just as much entitled to the sup¬ 
port and help of the Government as the Mississippi River, but to my 
mind this is a great deal bigger problem than a river problem. 

If Germany and England are willing to spend large sums of money 
in the development of cotton fields in their colonies, is it not worthy 
of your attention? And is there a surer way of bringing the price 



FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 251 

of cotton down to what it was a few years ago, down to a compara¬ 
tively small price, than by the increase of the acreage planted in 
cotton. Some years the seasons may be favorable, or the negroes 
may work a little better that year, and w T e may arrange the acreage 
planted so as to make a somewhat larger crop than the year before. 
But larger cotton crops, as a rule, very much larger cotton crops, 
gentlemen, are only going to be obtained by increasing the area 
planted in cotton. I have no doubt that there are many places in 
the United States and in the Southern States, I should say, where 
there are still some lands available for cotton, but I know of no 
State that has a territory to compare with this great territory in the 
Delta of the Mississippi, none in which the area is anywhere near 
as large, and none where the land is anywhere near as fertile. 

If this is worth doing, gentlemen, do you not think that it is 
worth doing just as soon as possible? As I am not here to urge your 
appropriation of one or two million dollars for the next year, or any 
other sum, I am not here either to ask you to appropriate the whole 
$15,000,000 that is necessary right now; but is it not worthy of 
carrying in your minds and making up your minds that it shall be 
done just as soon as possible, to be done in the most economical way, 
to be mapped out in advance as a continuous work, so that there shall 
be no waste of money by its not being able to go on after the thing 
is once begun? 

There might be some reason for putting this off to the future, 
for putting off what you yourselves think were well done now, if we 
were poverty stricken; but, gentlemen, you know that that is not the 
case, for our present prosperity is the talk of all the peoples of the 
world, and it is actually the political slogan of more than one-half of 
the people of the United States. 

Now, there is a little enterprise in which our Government was 
engaged a short time ago that has always struck me on my humorous 
side when it was brought up in connection with the expenditure of 
Government funds for such great public works as this, and that was 
the expenditure of considerably over $300,000,000, I believe, and 
nearly 3,000 lives of our fellow citizens, in wresting Cuba from 
Spain and presenting it as a free gift to people who are alien to us 
in blood and custom, and who love us just about the same as the 
average man loves a man to whom he is under financial obligations. 
There may have been some benefit to us, gentlemen, in having the 
Cubans rule Cuba rather than the Spaniards, but for my part it has 
not been at all clear. The sentimental part of that transaction was 
understood, and the taking from Spain was almost unanimously 
approved, but I am not quite sure that the present to these ungrate¬ 
ful Cubans w T ould be as heartily approved just now. Cuba, with 
all its islands, embraces a territory of about 29,000,000 as against 
the 19,000,000 acres in the delta of the Mississippi, and a far larger 
proportion of Cuba’s total acreage is and always will be totally 
unproductive. 

Now, if the Governirent could afford to be so lavishly generous 
in making a present to these kind friends of ours in Cuba of so large 
an amount of money, gentlemen, is it asking very much or is it a 
very strange thing that we should ask the expenditure of a paltry 
$15,000,000 to develop a Cuba lying in your very midst? Just think 
of this magnificent province. It is as large as Vermont, New Hamp* 


252 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

shire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. The undeveloped part of 
it is as large as Vermont, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. That 
undeveloped part is of just about the size of New Jersey, Delaware, 
and Maryland. Now t , suppose that those three last-named States 
were entirely undeveloped on account of overflows from the ocean 
and that the $15,000,000 w T ould open them up to settlement, open up 
their lands to the various productive crops that those States can 
raise; gentlemen, would there be any hesitation on the part of the 
United States Government about expending that amount to save 
and develop a province like New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland? 
And yet w T e come to you and point out that here is a province a little 
farther toward the West, at present made unfit for population and 
cultivation, and for the production which I have suggested is to the 
benefit of the whole country, by overflows, not from the ocean, whose 
waters can not be increased or diminished; an area which can not be 
increased or diminished as cultivated area is increased all over the 
country outside of this area I am speaking of, but a country which 
is affected by overflows of waters that pour down upon it from a 
little over two-fifths of all the other parts of the United States. 

Now, I have heard it said in connection with these matters that 
the Mississippi River Commission, as it came down my way on more 
than one occasion, has said that God helps those who help them¬ 
selves. If that is the case, gentlemen, certainly the Nation, which 
is our earthly god, ought to stretch out a helping hand to this coun¬ 
try down there, for they have been doing year after year everything 
in their power, imposing upon themselves a burden, to keep from 
drowning in waters that come from the North, the East, and the 
West. You have been told about the difference between the amount 
expended by the Government in levees and by this country down there 
which is to be protected. I believe from the first levees constructed 
the Government has expended $17,000,000, and the people of that 
country have expended something over $40,000,000. Of course there 
was a time during this late unpleasantness when a good many of these 
levees were broken and destroyed, but even after the work was taken 
up again, after the Civil War, the people down there spent a great 
deal more than the Government in that work. And it has been dem¬ 
onstrated to be effective. 

I do not believe there is anyone on this committee, in view of all 
the reports of Government engineers and the Mississippi River Com¬ 
mission, who will doubt the efficacy of the levees, if they were com¬ 
pleted, or the efficacy of the levee sj^stem even as far as it has gone; 
and if that is true, should not the Government dow T n there, after 
the expenditure of $15,000,000—even if all these other things do not 
make any impression upon you—put in the other $15,000,000 to 
complete this work? If it is true that half begun is well done, I 
say that half done, if you are to stop there, certainly was not well 
begun. 

Now, I am the owner of several plantations in that delta, and I 
have owned a good many. Before coming up here I had the tax 
receipts of the places that I now own, and some others that I owned 
only a few years ago, brought to me, and, gentlemen, the taxation 
down there varies from 2 per cent to 4 per cent on the cost of these 
plantations to me, the variation being according to the levee district 
in which the plantation happens to be situated. Now, that is a taxa- 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI EIVEB. 253 

tion solely for levee purposes, not for anything else. It is solely for 
the purpose of maintaining the levees. Does not that suggest a 
pretty heavy burden of taxation? Does it not suggest that the 
people down there are doing all in their power to bring about a result 
which should be for the good of the whole country? 

But you can not impose a heavier burden than that upon them. 
Ihe property will not stand it. But if the levee system were com¬ 
pleted, if it were entirely done, I have not any doubt, from the in¬ 
creased area in cultivation, and the increased value of the property, 
and the increased production, that the people of that country would 
be able to take care of and protect this levee system without any 
further assistance from the Government. 

But the last thing I wish to speak to you about, and to my mind 
it is a very strong reason why the Government should do this work, 
and do it as quickly as possible, is this: We have with us in the delta 
a large number of the wards of the Nation—the negroes. It is the 
natural home of the negro. There is the maximum yield of cotton 
for the minimum amount of work, and that always suits the negro. 
[Laughter.] 

Among southern negro farmers the drift has for many years been 
toward the Delta, and still is, but interrupted by the frequent over¬ 
flows. With the complete protection of this country, the negro will 
find his greatest opportunity, and he will not do harm to other 
States, because in those States the land will be taken up by the 
whites. The white man will not become a tiller of the soil in the 
South alongside of the negro, and as the negro gets out of the coun¬ 
try the white settlers come in, and like the cultivators of the wheat 
and corn lands of the North they will become actual tillers of the 
soil. Now, I believe that in this very Delta lies the solution of the 
so-called “ negro question.” We have him with us always, and he is 
on the minds of many of us. I have done a great deal of thinking 
about it, and I have tried an experiment. 

I believed that the negro would become an industrious citizen and 
a fairly good citizen if he owned his farm; that not education but 
land ownership was the thing to elevate the negro, if you choose to 
call it that, but at any rate to better his condition and make him— 
what is to the interest of the whole country—a good citizen. I am 
not in the real-estate business, gentlemen, but I subdivided some.of 
my own lands, and was instrumental in having some other land 
owned by some of my ow T n friends subdivided into small farms—40, 
60, 80, and 160 acres—and these farms I sold to negroes without any 
cash payment, on long time and easy payments and at a rate of in¬ 
terest low in that section—6 per cent. 

In nearly every instance I built a cabin, a little frame house, for 
the negro to live in. In many instances I bought and furnished him 
a mule with which to make the crop, and in some instances I even 
went the length, after furnishing him the house and the mule, of fur¬ 
nishing him the money with which to live for the first year. In all 
I disposed of a little over 23,000 acres in this way, and less than one- 
fourth of it has come back on my hands, and while in the instance 
of the other three-fourths the money has not all been paid, sufficient 
of it has been paid to guarantee that of those transactions the re¬ 
maining three-fourths will turn out well. And in every instance the 
negro who has bought land has become a good citizen and an in- 

30573°—H. Rep. 300, 63-2, pt 2-17 


254 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


dustrious citizen, and ambitious to further better his condition. And 
this has been my observation also of other negro landowners. I 
know that there are some exceptions; I do not mean to say that there 
are not; but I believe that the rule will hold generally good, and I 
have not the slightest hesitancy in telling you gentlemen that the 
negro farmer is a better citizen and a more successful man than the 
negro preacher, the negro doctor, the negro artisan, and the negro 
lawyer. I am not alone in this belief, for Judge Robert S. Taylor 
has said: 

“ In considerable and ever-increasing numbers they are buying 
land and becoming independent cultivators. Those who do so are 
steadily advancing in thrift, intelligence, and the qualities of good 
citizenship. Nowhere else in the South are as favorable opportuni¬ 
ties offered to the black man as in the reclaimed Mississippi low¬ 
lands, and nowhere else is he doing as much for his own uplifting.” 

That is the observation of a man who does not live there, but who 
comes there a great deal. 

I am sincere in bringing this negro question before you. It has 
not been done to make an additional argument, but it is done because 
I am fully convinced that there is a great deal in it, and that the 
opening up of that 13,000,000 or 14,000,000 acres of land in the Delta 
will do more than anything else to quiet a question that is not as loud 
in the South as it is in the North, but a question that is a serious one, 
the providing in some way for this great mass of black population 
that has got to do something. 

Now, a great many people in the United States feel that the Nation 
owes the negro something, and to them I would say, here is a prac¬ 
tical way of paying that debt without giving him what the negro 
thought he ought to have at the end of the war—40 acres and a 
mule—and what he certainly is not going to get from Uncle Sam, and 
that is Government rations. 

Statement of Mr. Leroy Percy. 

Mr. Percy. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee: My 
conception of the duty of this committee in coming here before you 
was to tell the Committee on Rivers and Harbors here the character 
of conventions that passed these resolutions, the diverse interests 
represented by them, and to vouch in person for the earnestness of 
purpose and the dire need which prompted the demands or requests 
upon the National Government. 

I had not thought and do not think it advisable to attempt before 
this board of experts, as you may say, on this subject, to go into any. 
academic or scientific discussion in regard to the Mississippi River, 
how the work shall be done, whether it can be done or not. At the 
same time there are a few suggestions which appear to me to be per¬ 
tinent, and if the committee will pardon me for the unprepared man¬ 
ner in which they are submitted, I would like to submit to the com¬ 
mittee that there are three questions upon the affirmative answers 
to which depends whether this convention and its needs have any 
standing before this committee or any right to expect aid from the 
National Government. These questions are: Is this work of re¬ 
claiming the Delta from the overflow waters of the Mississippi River 
worth doing? Second. Can this work be done? And third. By 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 255 

whom must this work be done, if at all? Unless those questions can 
be answered in the affirmative, then, indeed, is our errand here a 
futile one. If answered in the affirmative, then the necessary aid 
must necessarily and will follow. The sole thing left for considera¬ 
tion is the time and the maner in which the work shall be done. 

First. Is the work of reclaiming this Delta one worth doing? 
Thirty thousand square miles of territory—alluvial land—is to be 
protected by the complete revetting of the Mississippi River. Twenty 
million acres of territory, of which there is possibly 6,000,000 acres 
in cultivation now. There are probably 4,000,000 acres that could 
not be put in cultivation, owing to the necessary overflow out and 
backwater, no matter what system of levees you have; but there is 
at least 10,000,000 acres of it that is susceptible of the highest degree 
of cultivation. Upon this 10,000,000 acres of land, on the most con¬ 
servative estimates, in addition to the diverse crops—sugar cane and 
corn and other agricultural products that can be grown—2,000,000 
bales of cotton can and almost certainly will be grown. 

Is the growing of it a matter of national importance? The an¬ 
swer to that question has already been made in the eloquent and 
broad-minded and patriotic speech of Mr. Fairchild. He has told 
what that means to this Nation; he has told how by our cotton crop 
we have been elevated almost, you may say, to the most commanding 
position among the nations, and he has told you how we have pried 
open the strong boxes of every nation on the globe. The cotton 
crop constitutes 28 per cent of the exports of the United States, 41 
per cent of the value of all agricultural exports. To attempt to im¬ 
prove upon what Mr. Fairchild has said would be indeed to at¬ 
tempt to paint the lily; but the answer is not only found in plain 
English, such as he has spoken, but it is found in diverse tongues 
from all quarters of the globe. 

The five greatest consumers of the cotton exported by the United 
States are England, Germany, France, Russia, and Belgium. They 
are to-day exhausting every effort, regardless of cost of the enter¬ 
prise, going into the waste places of the earth, going among the 
barbarous uncivilized tribes of the world, in the effort to escape 
this tribute which we have inexorably demanded at their hands; and 
I hazard this statement, Mr. Chairman, that no civilized nation to¬ 
day is so depleted in treasure as to hesitate one moment to make an 
investment of the kind required here—$20,000,000 at the outside—on 
an almost indefinitely small chance of realizing such a return as is 
promised here. Shall the United States, the richest and most pro¬ 
gressive of all nations, flinch from such an investment when the 
return is not a venture but a certainty ? 

Mr. Caldwell has eloquently brought before you the fact that 
the cost of these cotton goods is one that affects every citizen of the 
United States. If this amount of cotton can be grown by means of 
this aid extended by the National Government or by reason of this 
work being done, then the question has been answered that the work 
is worthy of doing; that this income, which turns the balance of 
trade in our favor, which amounts to $500,000,000 a year, and will 
increase from now on, is something worth struggling for; the in¬ 
vestment is worth making. 

Can it be done? Can the 1,140 miles of levee necessary to pro¬ 
tect the Mississippi Delta be maintained? Is the project a possible 


256 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

one? About that in the past there has raised much discussion; about 
that in the future there can be no dispute and no question. The 
question has been answered with mathematical certainty that it can 
be done, and in dollars and cents you are told for what price it can 
be done. The Mississippi River Commission, appointed in 1879 by 
the Government for the purpose of taking control of this river, an¬ 
swers the question not by any a priori reasoning. Composed of some 
of the most eminent engineers in the United States, selected on ac¬ 
count of their competency and attainments, they have not trusted 
simply to the voice of science, but after spending 20 years and more 
investigating the question they say that the result of the high water 
of 1903, with the disaster that it brought, brought also the assurance 
that the end was in sight; that the problem had been solved; that 
it could be definitely stated what it would cost to complete the work 
now under way. 

That overflow was the greatest that we have on record. In the 
1,140 miles of levee the river made six breaks, counting breaks above 
New Orleans such as overflowed any area of country at all. In the 
entire line of levees there were six crevasses. Altogether there were 
2.4 miles of levee swept away by the flood, but more than nine-tenths 
of the levee district remained protected, notwithstanding the size 
of the flood, and the crevasses that did occur did not occur in the 
incipient stages of the high water, so that the argument oft made 
and oft repeated that it will never be possible to build levees strong 
enough to hold the floods because the water will rise and overtop the 
levees unless they give way, failed in this instance. If there had been 
no break, there would have been no appreciable increase in the height 
of the water, demonstrating that the levees as made were almost 
sufficient to carry off this water, and showing exactly what kind of 
levee was needed to guard against the recurring waters of the future. 

When you look back to 1882, when the entire district of Louisiana, 
Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Missouri would have been sub¬ 
merged by this water, the question is answered as to whether these 
levees are a success, when you find that with such a flood only one- 
tenth of the ground protected was overflowed; and the commission 
says that by the expenditure of $18,000,000 you can complete and pro¬ 
tect this system so that there is an assurance of safety behind these 
earthen walls. 

The work, then, can be done. The next question is, Who must do 
it? That work must be done by the National Government. It can be 
done in no other way; and it will be done by the National Govern¬ 
ment, and for these reasons. In the first place, we are leveeing a 
national stream. It has been described as the Nation’s great sewer, 
draining 41 per cent, exclusive of Louisiana, of the entire area of the 
United States, draining of States and parts of States 32 in number. 
It is the water that the Nation has gathered up and hurls down upon 
the denizens of the lower valley. Even in common law, and more so 
in courts of equity, the rule is well recognized the world over that no 
man shall use his own to the hurt of another. 

It is a maxim, Mr. Chairman, that will not be disregarded by a 
great nation in dealing with its own citizens. From the cleared for¬ 
ests of the West and the Northwest in all these States comes all this 
mighty avalanche of water, and upon these people, a mere fringe of 
humanity that stretches along between the river banks and the hills, 




FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 257 

has devolved the duty of battling with these waters. It is the Na¬ 
tion s duty, and therefore the Nation will respond to it; and that it 
has not done so sooner has been because that sense of duty has not 
been awakened in it. It is a national w T ork, Mr. Chairman, because 
this same commission reports to the Government that appointed it 
that without a perfected system of levees the navigation of that 
stream can never be brought to any condition of perfection. This is 
a channel that the Government owns, and the tribunal in charge of 
it tells you that these crevasses and breaks and overflows create shoals 
up and down the river which interfere with navigation and must 
necessarily do so. 

The question as to the raising of the bed of the river has been 
answered by the report of the commission. The experiments made 
by them, conducted through a number of years, have removed that 
apprehension from the minds of all people who have followed their 
investigations; so that I say, Mr. Chairman, in the interests of com¬ 
merce that the Government will do it, because the Government alone 
can do it. It is of a magnitude beyond the reach of any local organi¬ 
zation or board. 

That, Mr. Chairman, is perfectly demonstrable, and in this con¬ 
nection I submit to this committee that, as Mr. Caldwell has said, 
these people have helped themselves. Through the long years, for 
years without, and since 1882 with, Government aid, these people 
have struggled with this problem as best they could, by taxation im¬ 
posed in a hundred ways so as to make it tolerable, they have sought 
to protect themselves. They have spent since 1882 more than 
$20,000,000 where the Government has spent $17,000,000. They have 
spent since and prior to the time of the Government commencing 
to aid them, $40,000,000. Is there any other class of citizens which 
comes before this committee appealing for Government aid, whether 
they come from the great cities, with their countless millions oi 
wealth, or wherever they may come from, that can make the showing 
that these little bands of straggling agriculturists, hampered by 
State lines, State laws, and State constitutions, can make? 

We have borne the burden through the darkest hours of adversity, 
and it is not to escape that burden that we now have come be¬ 
fore the committee, but we come here for the purpose of showing 
that the work is beyond our feeble efforts, beyond all we can do; 
and if the committee w T ill excuse me for a moment for dwelling upon 
local matters, I can best illustrate that by giving you the outlook in 
the district where I live, not as singular at all, but as illustrative of 
the difficulty of doing anything by local organization. That district 
is known as the Yazoo Delta from the Tennessee hills to Vicksburg, 
embracing 825 miles of levee, 200 miles of which are within the dis¬ 
trict w T here I reside, the lower Mississippi district. We had up to 
1882 spent $10,000,000. 

The flood of 1882 devastated the entire country. I remember well 
the convention which assembled for the purpose of deciding the 
question of whether any more money should be expended on levees: 
not that the levee question was a failure, but that it was recognized 
that the work was beyond our means to cope with. At that time we 
had 2 banks in that district where to-day we have 30; we had 2 oil 
mills where to-day we have 28; we had not, and never could have had 
without levees, a single mile of railroad where to-day we have 1,000. 


258 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


And it was decided to go on, and we went on under a tax imposed, 
to give you some idea of how this money was raised, of 5 cents per 
acre on all lands, 5 mills ad valorem on all property, real and per¬ 
sonal, $1 per bale on all cotton raised within the district; and through 
these taxes we collected in those days about $250,000 a year, and with 
that increasing as the development made the amount of tax collected 
greater, and since 1882 assisted by the Government, Ave have advanced 
to the condition of being probably the most prosperous part of the 
Yazoo Delta. The entire country is threaded with railroads; about 
50 per cent of the land in that portion of the delta is cleared up, and 
to-day, with that prosperity, and with the increased returns coming 
from taxation, we are perfectly aghast and helpless at the outlay that 
confronts us. 

The last engineer’s report, made by the engineer of our local 
board, not for the purpose of parading our ills before the world, but 
because it contains information addressed to the board for the infor¬ 
mation of the district, showed that by the caving of those banks we 
would have to spend in the next few years $1,200,000 in building new 
levees, and $2,000,000 in raising our levees above the last water, and 
the lowest most scant margin consistent with any degree of safety 
would take $3,700,000; and all that we had with which to do this 
work was this revenue from taxation of $350,000 a year, a large part 
of which is devoted to acquiring rights of way and keeping up the 
levees already constructed. 

But we have not shrunk with the protection of the Government— 
with the aid that the Government has given us. We have not held 
back with the idea that our own efforts might be charged against us 
by the Government when it came to the consideration of the question 
of assisting us. In the Legislature of Mississippi there is pending a 
measure by which we propose to tax ourselves for $1,000,000 more 
in bonds in that single district, and yet with all that, Mr. Chairman, 
unless the Government should aid the district, we are as helpless 
to-day as when we built the first yard of levee, because $3,200,000 in 
two years is a sum beyond any possibility of raising by any system 
of taxation that can be devised by man; and so it is throughout 
these other districts. The labor is one beyond the power of the local 
boards. It is one easily within the reach of the Government. 

When we say expended, Mr. Chairman, $12,000,000 in two dis* 
tricts, the amount of the expenditure must not be taken as a criterion 
of what it is necessary for the Government to expend in order to give 
us protection. That $12,000,000 is money that has been expended 
year by year in driblets, as it could be raised from the people by 
taxation, and a large part of the work done with that money has been 
swept away by floods within the year, and that work has had to be 
built over and over again where we had built before. That does 
not represent the amount of money that would have to be spent if 
as much as was needed was available all at once, and it was spent 
intelligently, so that the floods would not carry away one year what 
had been placed in position the year before—spent by the one spend¬ 
ing having means to do it at the proper times, and to see that what 
was done was properly protected and that the work done was not 
imperiled. 





FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


259 


That is the reason I say, Mr. Chairman, that the work will be done 
by the Government, and I say again that we do not come here, 
onerous as this tax is, to escape from our burden; we are not driven 
here, and these conventions are not called together, for the purpose 
of escaping this taxation. Few who attend the conventions bear the 
burden of that taxation. We have borne it in the past and, with the 
aid of the Government, we are willing to bear it in the future, but 
what we want is to have the Government say, “ We are willing to add 
that to your efforts which will give you safety; ” to say to the capi¬ 
talists of the world, “ Behind these levees you can place your money, 
knowing that it is protected by the Government;” and we want to 
be able to hold out to the laborers of the world an invitation—for 
here in this part of the world there is a greater demand and return 
for their labor than at any other place on the top of the globe— 
and we want to be able to say to them, u Here you can labor and rest 
in safety, because this Government guarantees that this work will 
be maintained.” 

So, as I say, it is not to escape the burden that we have borne that 
we are here. And as to what should be given by the Government, 
that rests within the discretion of the committee and of the Congress. 
But there is this to be considered, that if it is well to do it you want 
to do it now; you want to do it just as rapidly as the money can be 
expended. If you know that you are going to do this work, do it so 
that you know you are not going to have to spend dollar for dollar 
in repairing work that has been swept away. Every high water 
through which the work is postponed menaces your entire work. 
Millions of dollars that you have invested will be swept away by a 
single flood; and not only that, but the local boards are your part¬ 
ners, Mr. Chairman, in this labor. They have been your partners, 
contributing three dollars to your one, ever since you have gone into 
this, and they are willing to be your partners in the future. You 
do not want by your delay to hazard the bankruptcy of your partners. 

The flood of 1893 cost over $5,000,000 in loss of life and agricul 
tural products. The flood of 1906, if the levees are not placed in 
condition, may make that loss of $5,000,000 seem a paltry thing. 
You want to do that work so that your completed system is left to 
the districts to maintain, if you see fit to leave it to them, and not as it 
is now—a system which every engineer along the line of the Missis¬ 
sippi knows is simply dependent upon the caprice of the flood, and 
which may be swept away by the next spring’s rain. You can finish 
that, put it in its completed shape, for $15,000,000. I mean to sav 
that the Government can do it for that. If you give us under this 
appropriation $1,000,000 a year for this 1,140 miles of levees, that is 
barely enough to maintain it if you had it completed. Give us 
$4,000,000 for four years and complete the work which you have 
entered upon. 

It is no answer to this, Mr. Chairman, to say that there are meri¬ 
torious demands from other sections. Test it. Is the work worth 
doing anywhere? Is it the duty of the Government to do it? Can 
anyone else but the Government do it? And where these questions 
are answered in the affirmative, then make the expenditure, and it is 
a wise expenditure and a good expenditure of the Government’s 
money. 


260 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


The Chairman. Let me ask you just two or three questions. What 
share of the total appropriations, of the expenditures for rivers and 
harbors, do you think should be given for the Mississippi River? 

Mr. Percy. I do not know that the matter should be decided in that 
way. The question is, What does the Mississippi River need? I 
could not answer that, as to what share of the total should be given 
to the Mississippi River. 

The Chairman. We have the same argument from at least a hun¬ 
dred other sources all the time. They say the question is as to what 
they need. We have to equalize them. 

Mr. Percy. Then you have to look to the national character of the 
work, Mr. Chairman, and the magnitude of it, and see what is neces- 
sary. 

Just one other thing: The most of the work that this committee is 
doing in the appropriations for various harbors and cities, all of 
which are wise and right, that work is frequently permanent. We 
might be satisfied with what you are giving us with the million dol¬ 
lars a year you are giving us, we might be willing to struggle on with 
this conflict at that rate, but you are imperiling every year your own 
investment. It is not like building a house, where you can stop if 
driven to it because of lack of funds, and later you can go back and 
find the house there as you left it. 

The Chairman. The argument is very strong with regard to the 
levees, but it is not exceptional, for in many other cases the work has 
to be finished before it can be used, and it is liable to destruction if 
it is left. 

Mr. Percy. So it is, in some instances. 

The Chairman. As, for instance, in the case of breakwaters. How 
many crevasses were there in this district? 

Mr. Percy. Only one. 

The Chairman. What is the present condition of the levees to resist 
ordinarv floods? Suppose that we have only an ordinary flood in 
1905? 

Mr. Percy. The ordinary high water we would be protected from 
by the existing levees. It is the high waters that come every three 
or four years, or four or five years, that do the damage. 

The Chairman. Why must this levee be raised 4 or 5 feet? 

Mr. Percy. Because the high water in this district was in some 
places more than a foot higher than the levee for 4 miles. I saw the 
levee raised more than 1 foot, with the water lapping over it with 
every wave. That was raised by sacks, mere temporary w r ork, which 
was done at a cost at that particular place of about $40,000. That 
work was purely temporary, and had to be put up to prevent the 
water running over the top of the levee and submerging the whole 
country. A raise of 2 feet simply puts about 12 inches over the last 
high water. 

The Chairman. I believe the last flood was more severe than its 
predecessor, in 1897 ? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. And more severe than others? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. In how many places would you say that the levees 
were threatened in your own district? 




FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 261 

Mr. Percy. They were threatened along the entire 200 miles. 

The Chairman. That is, the crevasses would be likely at any point? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. \ou think it difficult to select the weak places? 

Mr. Percy, "ies, sir; at some places there are only a few miles 
where we have been able to reach Government grade—that is, the 
grade that the Government engineers say would give safety. Those 
places are safe, but the works need raising and also enlargement. 

The Chairman. What would you say with reference to the con¬ 
struction of levees? Are they threatened with undermining by the 
river ? 

Mr. Percy. No, sir; not except where the river has caved up rapidly 
to within a short distance. 

The Chairman. That is where revetment is needed ? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir; the Longwood levee in our district, one of 
the largest in the district and one of the worst threatened points 
always in previous years, because of the poor foundation for it, and 
because of the exposed position to water wash, that levee was built 
up to grade and built up to the river bank. It has never been a 
source of anxiety since. But an examination within the last three- 
months showed that it has caved up to within 300 feet of the face 
of that levee, and that it was still caving in at the rate of more than 
half the distance in a year. That means that that levee has to be 
relocated within two years. 

The Government engineers have made an estimate of the cost, and 
it appears that that levee has to be put back for 2 miles or more. 
The cost of the entire work, including any damages and effects of 
water, and so forth, is $500,000, and 9 miles of a trunk-line railroad 
will have to be removed—moved back, and the entire traffic on that 
road will have to be interrupted during that work. 

The Chairman. If the levee system is to be completed, what will 
be the principal source of expenditure, for revetments to prevent 
caving, or for the construction of levees proper ? 

Mr. Percy. The principal source of cost would be where it would 
become necessary to relocate a levee on the ground and the moving. 
Where you locate the levee back you are bound to take the chance of 
some extraordinary caving reaching it within the next 10 years. 

The Chairman. What would you say as to the general policy of 
the Government, as to what we should recommend in this committee, 
in regard to the protection of all lands abutting on rivers from flood 
or from the ocean? Now, I notice in the resolutions presented here 
that there is a recommendation as to St. Louis and Kansas City- 
What would you say as to the policy that we should pursue there? 

Mr. Percy. That is simply what the Government engineers should 
investigate and report if anything could be done by the Government 
to prevent the recurring floods there. What I should say was the 
proper way would be to handle these questions as they are presented 
to you and in order of magnitude and merit as these claims seem to 
warrant. You can not at one session of Congress, or you can not 
now, map out what will be the limits of the river and harbor expendi¬ 
tures, but you can say, “ here is a work we have got to do,” and you 
can say that here is a work that is worthy of care, and this is a work 
the magnitude of which is known. 


262 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


The Chairman. Of course we do not blame you for your earnest¬ 
ness, but there are many other things which are presented to us with 
equal earnestness. How about the Mississippi River above Cairo? 

Mr. Percy. The people up there are much better able to present 
their claims to you than I am. [ Laughter.] 

The Chairman. How about the Missouri River? That is another 
question. 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir; that is a matter that worries the Missouri 
man. 

The Chairman. That, of course, is a very serious question for 
the committee, as to what should be the general policy in regard to 
it. I think it is only due to the committee and to you to say that we 
have before us $500,000,000 of estimates, and our bill does not carry 
more than $25,000,000 a year. Now, doing the best we can to take 
care of the estimates, it is a difficult matter. Anything you do to 
stimulate and educate the public sentiment in these matters will 
help us, of course. 

Mr. Percy. There is one thing certain, you must get awa}^ from 
that limit of $25,000,000. 

Mr. Fairchild. Mr. Chairman, as you have been talking, it has 
seemed to me that questions of this nature we make a great mis¬ 
take in not treating as a whole; we make a mistake in treating them 
as merely annual affairs. 

Now, you are going to build this canal, and you are going to 
issue bonds to provide for the whole enterprise. Here is a thing 
which is not like others that you have suggested, but which will last 
for all time in its importance. It is not like the question of keeping 
a harbor clear, of dredging the annual accretion of deposits in a 
harbor, but it is doing something such as the building of a canal, 
such as we are doing in the State of New York in making the barge 
canal through that State, which is for all time, as that is there. 

Now, it seems to me that wise statesmanship would take that in 
view, and if need be issue bonds—do that which does the work 
most effectively and economically and expeditiously. It seems to 
me that the time has come when these great questions, and par¬ 
ticularly a question like this, which is of such vast importance to us 
and of such a permanent nature, ought to be considered in some such 
way, and not made to fit into the annual revenue of the Government. 

The Chairman. Then, do I understand you that you would advo¬ 
cate the issue of bonds for this purpose? 

Mr. Fairchild. I would. 

The Chairman. For river and harbor improvements? 

Mr. Fairchild. I would, where they they are of this permanent 
nature, like the building of a canal, like the doing of that sort of 
thing. I think that economy and wise finance would treat the subject 
in that way and provide for the funds as they can be wisely ex¬ 
pended, irrespective of annual revenue. That is the way I would do 
it if I was an individual doing it, and if I was the United States 
and had these things on hand I would do it in that way. 

Mr. Bishop. I would like to ask one question. You have had a 
great deal of experience in public affairs. The committee is largely 
up against this proposition and must assume some policy in its own 
defense in reference to it. Setting aside the Mississippi River, to 
which the Government is already pledged in a measure, would you 




FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 263 

advocate the policy of the Government caring for the banks of a 
river to prevent the erosion of private property ? 

The Chairman. The banks of rivers? 

Mr. Bishop. Yes, sir; the banks of rivers. 

The Chairman. That, of course, must apply to all property and 
all characters of projects. 

Mr. Fairchild. I think, as a rule, I should. 

Mr. Bishop. That is, without reference to navigation. 

Mr. Fairchild. Not in reference to navigation. Where it is a 
matter that you can see is of importance extending beyond the local¬ 
ity, where it affects the country as a whole in its interests in any 
way, I should say that the United States should take whatever they 
determined should be its share of that. 

The Chairman. Now, is it not true that the protection of all 
lands is of interest to the country at large—that is, the protection of 
agricultural or other lands bordering upon rivers? 

Mr. Fairchild. That is quite true. Of course the thing has got 
to be treated in a practical, sensible way, but there are some cases 
w T here you would fear to say that the interests of the country as 
a whole was not enough in it; there are others that will be doubt¬ 
ful cases, and there are others where it is manifestly so. 

The Chairman. That is a question of great importance to us, 
Mr. Fairchild, because if we undertake that protection of land 
against floods and erosions, almost immediately the amount which 
must be appropriated for that purpose will be well in excess of the 
annual amount we are now expending for all the affairs included in 
our rivers and harbors bill, and everything. And this is true, and 
this has been one strong argument used in favor of the appropria¬ 
tions for levees of the Mississippi River, that it is a fact that the 
abutting property has paid half and more than half of the expense 
of the improvements down there. In that way this matter has been 
distinguished from the rest. Originally the argument, of course, 
was that it was in the interest of navigation, and to an extent cer¬ 
tainly very plausible arguments can be made that it benefits our 
navigation now. 

Mr. Fairchild. It does benefit navigation; there is no doubt 
about it, on that ground alone is. of course, very important. 
But it is a very much broader question than that. We would not 
hesitate to spend any amount of money in acquiring a property 
which we can acquire in this way if it was an original proposition 
somewhere of acquiring it some place in the world, and we would 
not hesitate to issue bonds for that purpose. Now. this thing is 
of a great deal more importance than your isthmian canal. 

The Chairman. That has not been the general sentiment of Con- 
gress. 

Mr. Fairchild. It is. and justifies that sort of thing—treating it 
on a large scale, with bond issues if necessary. I say. If that sort 
of thing is to be done, it should be done on the same principle on 
which you build your isthmian canal. 

The Chairman. Here is another question relating to this. Some 
years ago we could not pass a bill in the House but what the Senate 
would put on amendments appropriating very large sums for pur¬ 
poses of irrigation. Now, if we adopt the general principle that 
money should be appropriated where the value of the land will be 


264 


FLOODS AXD LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


increased and arable areas extended, do we not adopt the other prin¬ 
ciple that money must be expended for a great variety of subjects, not 
only making lands available for irrigation, but giving them protec¬ 
tion against natural calamities? Do we not do that? 

Mr. Fairchild. Very likely. 

The Chairman. Do we not logically come to that conclusion ? 

Mr. Fairchild. Very likely. But I think we must remember that 
in many directions the United States Government has entered upon 
that sort of work. It has entered upon it and it is going to do it. 
There is no use closing our eyes to the fact that we are not going 
back to the way that we used to do things. The United States Gov¬ 
ernment is going on to do this kind of thing. We might as well 
make up our minds to that, and that being the case I do not see why 
we should not proceed, in view of that state of things, and do it 
comprehensively and systematically and in the most economical and 
effective way. It may be that we started entirely on a wrong basis 
in doing these things by the National Government at all, but we are 
doing them and we are going on to do them. 

The Chairman. There is one point, of course, in this connection, 
that is pertinent to the work of this committee. Strictly speaking, 
our work should be limited to these appropriations which have to do 
with navigation. 

Mr. Fairchild. Yes; I know. 

The Chairman. The deepening and improvement of rivers would 
improve the harbors as well. This question is before us because at 
the beginning it was argued that these levees were for the sake of 
navigation. We have continued them, and they are carried on our 
bill partly as a matter of custom. 

Mr. Fairchild. But after all, the Congress and the country has 
ratified your action. They know that a large amount of your expend¬ 
iture has been outside, really beyond, the subject of navigation, and 
it has become an established thing, it seems to me, that this com¬ 
mittee does take these larger interests into consideration. 

The Chairman. I hardly know an exception outside of this. The 
tendency has been to restrict expenditures to matters pertaining to 
rivers and harbors. This is true, that we all recognize the magni¬ 
tude of the problem down there, and that it has been the settled 
policy of the Government for 20 years to recognize the great im¬ 
portance of developing those plans. It has, however, seemed to us 
that the benefit to the abutting property was such that that property 
should carry its share of the burden. 

Mr. Fairchild. I think that is true. 

The Chairman. Here are lands worth only $2 or $3 an acre that 
may be made worth $50 or $60 an acre. 

Mr. Fairchild. Yes. 

The Chairman. Now, is it quite right that that land owned by 
private parties, not an acre of it by the Government, or transferred 
to the States, should be so increased in value at the exclusive cost 
of the National Government? 

Mr. Fairchild. No; of course, when you put it that way, that 
is not correct. That is not correct, but even that applies to all kinds 
of things that you do; that unearned increment which was Henry 
George’s favorite runs everywhere. In some countries they do 
those things a little better than we do. For instance, I noticed the 




FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 265 

system of street opening in Birmingham, England. Here in New 
York, for instance, if we want to open a street we take just the 
amount of land necessary for the opening of that street, and we 
assess the adjoining owners for the benefits and the city pays a por¬ 
tion. In Birmingham they take a great deal more land than is 
actually necessary for the opening of the street, pay everybody for 
it when they take it, sell it on long leases—the land that is im¬ 
proved—and it does not cost the city or anybody anything. That is 
not our system, but everything we do gives that unearned increment 
to somebody—almost everything you are doing. 

The Chairman. The question is this, does the general improve¬ 
ment of a river or a harbor confer any such benefit on the adjacent 
property as does this improvement by the construction of levees? 
Of course, every bill we pass, every improvement of a harbor in¬ 
creases the value of the property. 

Mr. Fairchild. Of course. 

The Chairman. For instance, take the harbor of your own city— 
New York Harbor; the appropriations for that harbor increase the 
value of the property in the city, but do they increase that value in 
any such percentage as does this improvement ? 

Mr. Fairchild. Why, Mr. Chairman, I suppose if you did not 
keep continually improving and taking care of that harbor, property 
in New York would become almost valueless; and where are you 
going to draw the line as to where it comes ? 

The Chairman. But is it not a question of the proposition in, 
which it benefits the adjacent property? This benefits this land to 
the extent of increasing its value 10 to 20 times over. Is the property 
in New York benefited, increased in value, 10 to 20 times by what 
we do in the harbor? 

Mr. Fairchild. You mean, suppose we had a harbor all stopped 
up so that ships could not get up beyond Sandy Hook, and you 
should come and dig it out and make a way across to that city, what 
would be the effect on property ? 

The Chairman, Certainly; that is not similar to this question, be¬ 
cause it is a comparatively.small expense in proportion to the result 
of this thing, while this is a very much larger expense. 

Mr. Fairchild. No; that would be fully as large an expense in pro¬ 
portion to the result obtained then. But, of course, if you go into 
that question, I think you have got to revise your whole system and 
go into an ascertainment of exactly how much benefit is coming to the 
localities and how much of the expense they shall bear, and then you 
have laid out a task of investigation which has almost no end. 

Now, it would appear that those people down there have put a bur¬ 
den upon themselves of all that they can bear with their present 
resources. You go and add some millions of dollars to what you give 
to help them, and you improve resources down there very much, 
indeed. 

Now, unless you can devise some system by which the United States 
is going to take possession of those lands, improve the river, and then 
sell the lands and get the profit of it, which would be n business thing 
to do, you have got to take the chances of some people making more 
than their share out of the improvement, just as it is everywhere else. 

The Chairman. But is this the real point? I tried to make this 
clear before: Is not the added value here altogether out of proportion 


266 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI BIVEE. 


to what it is in the ordinary river and harbor? Here it is a conceded 
fact that these lands are worth only $3 or $4 an acre, and that they 
will come to have a value of ten or twenty times as great after the 
improvement of these levees. Suppose you take the improvement of 
the Ohio River, for which a considerable amount is sought. Does 
the money expended there increase the value of property along the 
river in any such proportion as here? 

Mr. Fairchild. No; probably not. But I do not think it is any 
argument against making the appropriation that this is a far greater 
benefit and will increase the national wealth a great deal more. When 
you come to think that there is no other way of doing it, that the pres¬ 
ent property has been taxed to the utmost extent that it can be, then 
to produce the other result this other money has got to come. If 
people are benefited by that in a greater degree in some localities than 
in others, owing to the conditions, I do not see that you can gauge it. 

The Chairman. There still remains the fact that we must take 
those facts into consideration. It may not be different in kind, but 
w 7 e have to notice differences in degree. 

Mr. Fairchild. Well, 1 do not think that makes any difference as 
to the appropriation. If you can devise any way to get that back out 
of the future benefits, well and good; but if you can not, that is no 
reason why you should not devise some w r av by which this improve¬ 
ment could be made. 

The Chairman. I think the committee is fully of the opinion that 
certain appropriations should be made. 

Mr. Caldwell. I think you have an entirely erroneous opinion 
of the land prices down there, Mr. Chairman. I can not conceive 
how 7 anyone w ould make a statement here that the building of these 
levees would increase the value of these lands ten or twenty times 
over. 

Now’ let me state the facts as they exist down there now. Cul¬ 
tivated land is w r orth so much per acre according to its location in 
relation to railroad or transportation facilities, in accordance with 
its freshness, and in accordance w 7 ith its improvement. Unimproved 
lands, w 7 oodlands, are worth about so much per acre to-day, in ac¬ 
cordance w 7 ith their location with reference to transportation, den¬ 
sity of population, natural lay of the land as to drainage, and levee 
protection. Now 7 there is a great deal of land down in that country, 
unimproved land, that by many people is considered fully pro¬ 
tected, but the people who consider it so are not so farsighted, be¬ 
cause with the system not completed w T e can not say that any of it is 
protected. But, granted, here is a tract of woodland that is con¬ 
sidered fully protected. 

Now, that tract of woodland, irrespective of the value of the timber 
thereon, which is an entirely different proposition—and w T e are taking 
it for agricultural purposes only—is worth $5 an acre, wdiereas in 
some other portion of the Delta another tract of land not rendered 
valuable by timber, but in the minds of the people fully protected 
from overflow 7 , is worth $2 per acre. What gives value to those lands? 
They are not increased in value ten or twenty times by putting up 
levees and completing the levee system. They never have been. 
Lands which before the completing of the levee system were worth $2 
an acre never jumped up to $26 or $40 after the levees were built. 
But the lands become valuable as the timber is taken off. as ditches are 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 267 

made, as houses are put upon the lands, as the plow goes into the 
ground, and as people come there and live upon it. That is what 
makes that valuable, and not the mere fact of the building of the 
levees. 

Now, for us to get the people there, to get the houses and the 
ditches there, to get the plow in the ground, we must have the levees, 
and I think you are making a great mistake if you think that the 
increase in value by this is anything like so great as that; and if I 
had been asked the question as to the increase in value of the prop¬ 
erty in the city of New York by river and harbor improvement as 
against these improvements in the Delta, 1 would have said that the 
increase in the Delta is but a drop in the bucket as compared to the 
increase in value of the lands of New York. 

The Chairman. Of course that was more by way of illustration. 

I have been reading with a great deal of interest the pamphlets giv¬ 
ing an account of the proceedings in New Orleans, and this estimate 
that I have spoken of is made in these addresses and pamphlets. So 
it does not originate entirely with me. 

Mr. Caldwell. People do all the time confuse those two ideas as 
to the productive area of land and the increased value per acre. 

Statement of Mr. Charles F. Hithlien. 

Mr. Huiilien. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, you 
can no doubt realize my embarrassment at being asked to speak after 
those who have preceded me. I might say that Kentucky has, as you 
all know, an immense mileage of navigable streams, both within and 
along its borders. It has a comparatively small levee district, and I 
will not attempt to refer to any phase of that question. But if you 
will pardon me, I would like to indulge in a little personal shop talk. 
I am a manufacturer at Louisville, and since the 1st of January it 
has been my duty to contract for many hundreds of tons of pig iron 
for our own business which we have bought in the Birmingham dis¬ 
trict. We have bought many hundred tons of bar iron from the Ohio 
and Indiana mills, and it is my intention in a day or two to return 
home by way of the Pittsburgh district and to contract there for sev¬ 
eral hundred thousand tons of steel for our business. 

I take the liberty of referring to that simply because I believe that 
we are typical of many hundreds, if not thousands, of industries all 
over the country. That is the interest that the manufacturing indus¬ 
tries of this country have in the trade of the great Delta, because we, 
along with hundreds, if not thousands, of other manufacturers, find 
our market largely, if not entirely, in this great Delta of the Missis¬ 
sippi. Those peole, as has been stated, buy everything they consume; 
they manufacture nothing, and will hardly manufacture anything; 
and they sell all that they produce as raw material to keep the mills 
of our country busy. We believe that this great Delta which would 
be reclaimed by these proposed improvements is one of paramount 
importance to this country, if you please, and we believe that it is 
well established that these levees simply expedite the current of the 
Mississippi River, thereby causing it to scour a deeper channel and 
more readily confine itself within its banks; and we believe as manu¬ 
facturers that the transportation interests of the Mississippi River are 
facilitated by these levees. 


268 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


We believe that the property all along the Mississippi Valley 
would be greater, the internal commerce of that whole section, the 
interstate commerce of the whole section, would be facilitated by 
these improvements; and as Kentuckians, and as patrons of the iron 
and steel interests and many other interests of the other parts of 
the country, we would be very glad if your committee would recog¬ 
nize what we believe to be the vastness of this great project. We 
believe that the best is none too good for any part of this great 
country, and we believe that a project as great and meritorious as 
this is merits the most generous and most liberal consideration at 
your hands. 

Statement of Mr. Alex. G. Cochran, Representing the Missouri 
Pacific Railway System. 

Mr. Cochran. Just before the holding of the levee convention at 
New Orleans, invitations were extended to many persons through¬ 
out the country to attend, and among others to Mr. Gould, president 
of that vast system of railroads known as the Gould system, and I 
will read to the committee the brief reply which he made: 

I regard your convention to be held in New Orleans on the 27th as a very t 
important event for the entire Mississippi Valley and all the great and diversi¬ 
fied interests therein, and I hope the views and plans for levee protection that 
will be formulated will be so desirable to all interests, and including those of 
your great city, that they will commend themselves to the public at large and 
to the Congress of the United States, where it is hoped liberal appropriations 
will be provided. 

The railroad interests I am connected with have underway and partially 
completed a low-grade line from East St. Louis, Ill., to New Orleans, crossing 
the Mississippi River on a great bridge at Thebes, Ill. When this line is com¬ 
peted it will be a water-grade line, paralleling the Mississippi and opening up 
virgin forests upon its west bank, and in addition it will make accessible great 
areas of farming lands susceptible of a high degree of cultivation if made safe 
from inundation. We are also, at great expense, rebuilding the railroad be¬ 
tween Little Rock, Ark., and Coffeyville, Ivans., and are constructing a new 
low-grade line of railroad in the White River Valley to connect our Kansas 
City lines with the main line of the Iron Mountain road. All of this, with nec¬ 
essary expenditures for equipment and other railroad appurtenances, will 
amount to from $40,000,000 to $50,000,000, and the work has been under way 
for two or three years with the belief on our part that this great investment, 
the bulk of which will be in the Mississippi Valley, will be protected from 
damage by floods and inundation. The completion of our plans hereinabove 
outlined will inure greatly to the benefit of the city of New Orleans and largely 
add to her maritime trade. 

Mr. Gould very much regretted that imperative engagements in 
New York made it impossible for him to appear in person before 
the committee, and he has requested me to speak in his stead. 

I am interested in this question from a railroad point of view, be¬ 
cause I am a citizen of the great metropolis of the Mississippi Valley, 

St. Louis, and because seven or eight of the best years of my pro¬ 
fessional life, prior to becoming connected with railroad enterprises, 
were spent with that great engineer of the Mississippi, Capt. James 
B. Eads, whose counsel I was up to the time of his death. The Mis¬ 
sissippi River has, therefore, always been a most interesting problem 
to me, and its phenomena a matter of careful study and thought. 

Now, of course, it is apparent to every gentleman of the committee 
that the question of railroad development in this vast alluvial delta 
is one dependent absolutely upon the proposition whether the lands 
through which the railroads are expected to run shall or shall not be 





FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


269 


protected from inundation. It is idle to suppose that great capital¬ 
ists, who have at heart, of course, the interests of the country through 
which they run—as being identical with their own interests—will 
expend the vast sums of money necessary to construct and equip rail¬ 
roads through this valley, unless they have some assurance that, when 
completed, their investment will not be swept away and destroyed, 
or unless they can have some further assurance that it will not cost 
more than the total amount of revenue earned for replacement or 
repairs because of injuries done by the floods. I can speak not only 
for our system of roads, which amounts to between 15,000 and 16,000 
miles, but I am sure that every other railroad system which has lines 
extending through this Mississippi Valley is deeply in sympathy 
with this movement to reclaim those lands and protect them by levees, 
so that railroad construction, which has been greatly impeded, or 
absolutely prevented in the past by reason of periodical overflows, 
may be completed and protected. Of course no argument is necessary 
before this committee that railroads are indispensable to the develop¬ 
ment of that vast territory. They will certainly be there if they can 
be protected from overflow. They will as certainly not be there if 
they can not be so protected, because it is idle to suppose that they 
will be constructed unless they can be guaranteed substantial protec¬ 
tion from periodical inroads of the river which would ruin the 
property. 

There are certain propositions in connection with this problem 
which I suppose we may consider as practically conceded. First, it 
has been settled by Congress that it is proper to make appropriations 
for levee improvement, irrespective of the consideration whether that 
improvement conduces to navigation of the river or not, and, as all 
the members of the committee are aware, there has been for some 
years past set apart from the appropriations for the Mississippi 
"River Commission a certain amount per annum which has been de¬ 
voted to the building up and strengthening of the levees. With that 
precedent approved by years of experience, it seems to be idle to go 
into a discussion- 

The Chairman. We all concede that, Mr. Cochran. The million 
dollars a year is set aside, and it has been discussed frequently on the 
floor of the House and also in this committee. However, we have 
usually coupled with that the statement that the localities gave as 
much or more than the General Government. 

Mr. Cochran. Of course there can be no complaint as to what the 
localities have done, because the records show that these good people 
who live down in that valley have taxed themselves to the utmost, 
have borne burdens heroically and with patience, for the building 
up of this great line of fortifications to protect themselves against 
that great onrushing enemy. We have, as boys, all read of the 
dragon that lived in the mountains and came down at stated intervals 
and demanded his victims, devouring the people who lived in the 
valleys below. My hair has stood on end many a time, as a boy, read¬ 
ing that tale. It makes me think of the great flood of the Mississippi. 
Those people do not produce it, and their country does not produce 
it; it is produced by 32 States above them, and it comes rushing down 
through this channel, and swells to a mighty flood which spreads 
abroad, carrying havoc everywhere. 

30573°—H. Rep. 300, 63-2, pt 2—--IS 


270 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

The Chairman. It is not one dragon only which is raised up 
before us. 

Mr. Cochran. Well, we will have to kill them one at a time, and 
we will begin with this Mississippi dragon. [Great laughter.] 

Down comes this great flood, pouring away from 10 States, and 
probably 22 others, and here are these people with this rich land, 
undeveloped as yet, capable of supporting many times the number of 
its present inhabitants, capable of producing the enormous crops of 
cotton of which Mr. Fairchild has so forcibly spoken—every word of 
what he said I cordially indorse, as well as every word that has been 
said on that same line by other speakers—here are these people to 
be protected. Now, is that an ordinary case? Are you going to look 
at that as you would at the question of whether a portion of the 
bank of the Ohio River, upon which I used to live, for instance, shall 
be revetted? Are you going to look at it as you would at the ques¬ 
tion Avhether there shall be a wing dam thrown out here or there, or 
whether this or that work shall be done here and there, as is ordi¬ 
narily done for the protection of banks on these streams tributary to 
the Mississippi? If so, you are going to take hold of this question 
from the viewpoint of the low valley and not from the hilltop. 

This is a question that must be viewed from the mountain top 
and not from the low ground of the valley. Here is a vast region 
which, without the protection of these levees, will be destroyed or 
rendered practically worthless without that protection. Not only 
so, but there is this justification which the committee has for re¬ 
garding this improvement as materially different from others, in 
that the Government of the United States has already invested more 
than $17,000,000 in this improvement, and it becomes essential for 
the protection of this large amount of Government money already 
invested that more shall be put in to save it. Consider for a mo¬ 
ment. Is not that a good answer to those who would say, “ We 
are technically just as much entitled to protection as those who live 
at the mouth of the river? ” You see, gentlemen, our Government 
has invested this enormous amount of money in these levees. True 
it is that in the same time we were expending this $17,000,000 the 
people living along the banks of this river expended $40,000,000, or 
rather from the year 1882, when the appropriations commenced, 
the people expended $28,000,000. Now, in view of the $28,000,000 
that these people have put in here in good faith, and in view of the 
$17,'500,000, say, that the Government has put in, we have a vast 
investment to be protected. We are facing a condition and not a 
theory, and for the protection of that investment we should complete 
this work. 

Gentlemen of the committee, this is no small question. It is a 
question which you must look at from the broadest point of view, 
and I do verily believe, if the good people of the United States 
could read those well-considered arguments that were made before 
the great levee convention at New Orleans in October last, that 
there is hardly a man in the United States who Avould not vote aye, 
and stand up, if necessary, in favor of this proposition. It is a 
great, broad, expanded theme that needs great, broad, and'expanded 
treatment. We are bound to look at it from the broadest and the 
highest standpoint. These people need our help; they must have 
it. There is no use in doling it out to them in small amounts of 





FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 271 

money year by year. They have reached the maximum of their re¬ 
sults in the way of raising money by taxing themselves. Now, we 
must meet the situation upon that basis. A small amount of money 
spent in the next two or three or four years may be of some benefit, 
but along comes one of these tremendous floods, like the flood of 
1903, and in a few hours the work which has been done has been 
swept away by that mighty and almost resistless tide. 

Now, there is the proposition that confronts you, gentlemen. 1 
know the difficulties of this committee; I know how every part of the 
country is demanding help; I know that in a technical sense the chair¬ 
man is right when he says, “ Why, so and so asks us for this and that. 
Now, on principle, are we not forced to divide it up and give a little 
here and a little there? ” I say you are bound to do that to a degree, 
but conditions must control you in this matter. The investment that 
I have spoken of, the demonstrated willingness of all these people to 
put their hands in their pockets and to help along to the utmost of 
their resources, which you do not find in many cases, and the grand 
results to flow from this must be considered. As to the improvement 
of any of these tributaries of the Mississippi, certainly in the upper 
regions where the farms are and where there are agricultural commu¬ 
nities there is no vast overflow, but, more correctly speaking, a wash¬ 
ing of the banks, and no one will pretend to say that there are any 
such conditions there as prevail down at the mouth of the river. 

Now, there is this further consideration, which, if you will pardon 
me, I will advert to, because you, Mr. Chairman, have referred to it, 
and I think you touched fairly upon every point in your questions. 
Mr. Chairman, there is this further to be said, and that is that the 
building of the levees promotes navigation and is a part of the scheme 
for the improvement of navigation. When Capt. Eads first under¬ 
took to improve the South Pass of the Mississippi by the jetties the 
little steam launch in which he and some of his engineers went about 
grounded in less than 6 feet of water. Now the commerce of the 
world passes through there unimpeded, through a channel not less 
than 200 feet in width and 30 feet in depth. Capt. Eads was always 
an advocate of and a believer in the levees as instrumentalities for the 
improvement of navigation, and one can see for himself without much 
study of the technical questions how manifestly this is true. The 
capacity of a sediment-bearing stream to carry the material with 
which those waters are charged is dependent upon two factors—one 
the volume of water and the other the velocity with which that water 
moves. 

Now, if you will look at this map of the Mississippi River you 
will see what I mean. If you allow the Mississippi River to scatter 
over a vast area of country, you are decreasing its volume, and just 
in proportion as you decrease its volume you decrease the carrying 
power of the current, you increase the friction upon the bottom, 
and the result is that instead of this volume of water passing down 
and carrying its load of detritus to the Gulf, where it is distributed 
over a vast area of deep water, it drops this load and decreases its 
own velocity. If you take a glass of Mississippi River water, it is 
as dark as coffee. Set it aside for a time and you will find that there 
is an inch of detritus at the bottom of it, and the remainder of the 
water is clear. What does this mean ? The movement of the water 
has been stopped, and with the stoppage of this movement you have 


272 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


stopped its ability to carry this sediment. Now, it is the same in 
this matter of the cutting. The Mississippi River Commission has 
reported against the plan of these cut-offs for the purpose of over¬ 
flow to let out the surplus water of the river to the one side or the 
other, holding, first, that to do so would build up a bar, and grad¬ 
ually, by building up above the curves, would raise instead of lower 
the flood line of the river, and furthermore, the Mississippi River 
Commission, after careful investigation and due consideration, has 
reported to Congress that the levee system adopted and approved 
by it on lines satisfactory to it is a system in aid of the navigation 
of the river. 

Certainly the foregoing may be legitimately said in favor of a 
system of levees as an aid to navigation, but if people say, “ We want 
you to reclaim our land,” and it should turn out to be a mere matter 
of reclamation of land, pure and simple, without any benefit what¬ 
ever to the general plan of improving the river, there you at once 
see that the two matters differ materially. But whatever way you 
look at it, and from whatever point you view it, the more you study 
it the more you must be convinced that this is a great exigency which 
the committee should meet in a great and broad-minded way. 

Statement of Mr. O. N. Killough. 

Mr. Killough. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I shall detain you 
a very few moments. I have been allotted by the chairman of our 
delegation 10 minutes in which to tell this committee all about the 
benefits that the great valley has derived from levees, and what the 
needs of the levees are. I might very readily m that time give you 
all phases of the canal question, or settle the tariff question or the 
free silver question, but I feel totally inadequate to settle this ques¬ 
tion in that length of time. So I shall confine myself to one sug¬ 
gestion. 

I come from a levee district in my State, and I must state things 
from our own personal experience, for I have no varied experience. 
This district is one of the youngest in length of maintenance along 
the river—some 230 miles in length and 20 to 50 miles in width. 
Until the levee system was begun in 1893 that country was a howling 
wilderness. We had a Mississippi River 50 miles wide every year, 
nearly. That river deposited flotsam and jetsam of all descrip¬ 
tions that it gathered up in its onward rush to the sea, and that 
deposit consisted of human as well as other waste, and some other 
things detrimental to agricultural interests. We had a country in¬ 
fested with a migratory class of people, who for a number of years 
immediately after the war and down until within a recent time re¬ 
flected no great credit upon the great State of Arkansas. We flat¬ 
tered ourselves and always contended, and do yet, that we were not 
responsible for the presence of these gentlemen, but had them because 
the sheriff of the county they came from was a crippled'man, or they 
were more fleet than he was, and escaped, because they do not groAv 
oh Arkansas soil and we do not sprout that sort of people. 

Now, we feel safe in the hands of the Mississippi River Com¬ 
mission. We feel that, if their plans are followed out and they are 
allowed full and free control, the levee interests will be in no bad 
hands. T ha at, not seen this suggested, and I wish to make the sug- 




FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 273 

gestion, and it will be all that I have to say to the committee. The 
commission, in allotting the $2,000,000 a year that has been allotted 
to the Mississippi River, proposed at the last meeting of the com¬ 
mission that the sum of $2,000,000 be allotted to the district at once, 
rather than to follow the agreement made at the prior meeting of 
the commission. 

The Chairman. Two million dollars for levees? 

Mr. Killougii. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. The ensuing year? 

Mr. Killougii. Yes, sir; instead of the $1,000,000 for each year. 
That allotment of the commission failed to meet the approval of the 
Secretary of War, and the money was denied to us. Immediately 
following a great overflow it is clearly apparent to those familiar 
with the levees and the river itself that a small sum of money is 
much more advantageous and can be handled to greater advantage 
to the people of the district than a considerable sum spread out over 
a length of time. You take your canal, and when you have dug a 
mile you can go away and leave it and go back with a surety of find¬ 
ing the hole there, and you can continue your canal; but when you 
build 1 mile of levee and do not follow that up or build it sufficiently 
strong and you go away and leave it and come back you will find a 
canal instead of a levee, and the last vestige of the levee is gone and 
it is usually a vast ditch. If we should have the $2,000,000 allotted 
by the commission I should feel that our district, which is the worst 
district along the river, would be greatly benefited. 

It has now a bonded debt of $1,500,000. It is settling rapidly 
and it is fertile land; and if we had that money, or, in other words, if 
the recommendation of the Mississippi River Commission were car¬ 
ried out, I should feel that our trip has not been in vain. 

The Chairman. Mr. Parker, is there a pamphlet of the proceed¬ 
ings of your levee commission in New Orleans? 

Mr. Parker. Yes, sir; a copy was sent to every member of the 
committee. 

The Chairman. I would like to have that. 

Mr. Parker. I will see that copies are sent you, Mr. Chairman. 
Before adjourning, Mr. Chairman, I desire to thank you, sir, and the 
entire committee, for our delegation, for the courtesy and considera¬ 
tion with which you have listened to us, and I earnestly hope that we 
can report results when we get back. 

(Thereupon the committee adjourned.) 


Appendix G. 


[Hearings of 1913.] 

MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


Committee on Rivers and Harbors, 

House of Representatives, 

Wednesday, December 3 , 1913. 

The committee met at 10.30 o’clock a. m., Hon. Stephen M. Spark¬ 
man (chairman) presiding. 

The Chairman. I have called the committee together for the pur¬ 
pose of considering H. R. 1749, introduced by Mr. Humphreys, of 
Mississippi, which reads as follows: 

A BILL To prevent floods on the Mississippi River and improve navigation thereon. . 

Whereas the Mississippi River is the Nation’s drainage ditch, and its flood 
waters, gathered from thirty-one States and the Dominion of Canada, consti¬ 
tute an overpowering force which breaks the levees and pours its torrents over 
many million acres of the richest land in the Union, stopping mills, impeding 
commerce, and causing great loss of life and property; and 
Whereas these floods are national in scope, and the disasters they produce se¬ 
riously affect the general welfare; and 
Whereas the States, unaided, can not cope with this giant problem; and 
Whereas the control of the Mississippi River is a national problem, and the pres¬ 
ervation of the depth of its water for the purpose of navigation, the building 
of levees to maintain the integrity of its channel, and the prevention of the over¬ 
flow of the land and its consequent devastation, resulting in the interruption 
of interstate commerce, the disorganization of the mail service, and the enor¬ 
mous loss of life and property, impose an obligation which alone can be dis¬ 
charged by the General Government: Therefore 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States 
of America in Congress assembled, That for continuing the improvement of the 
Mississippi River from the Head of the Passes to the mouth of the Ohio River, 
including the salaries, clerical, office, traveling, and miscellaneous expenses of 
the Mississippi River Commission, with a view to securing a permanent channel 
depth of nine feet, preventing the banks of the river from caving, and protecting 
the valley from floods, the sum of $12,000,000 is hereby appropriated, to be paid 
out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, and to be imme¬ 
diately available, which shall be expended under the direction of the Secretary 
of War in accordance with the plans, specifications, and recommendations of the 
Mississippi River Commission, as approved hy the Chief of Engineers, for the 
general improvement of the river, and for surveys, including the survey from 
the Head of the Passes to the headwaters of the river, in such manner as, in 
their opinion, shall best improve navigation and promote the interests of com¬ 
merce at all stages of the river, and for the building of levees between the Head 
of the Passes and Cape Girardeau, Missouri: Provided, That on and after the 
passage of this act the Secretary of War may, by hired labor or otherwise, carry 
on continuously the plans of the Mississippi River Commission as aforesaid, to 
be paid for as appropriations may from time to time be made by law, not to 
exceed in the aggregate $48,000,000, exclusive of the amounts herein and hereto¬ 
fore appropriated : Provided further, That the authorized sum last named shall be 
used in prosecuting the improvement for not less than four years beginning July 
first, nineteen hundred and fifteen, the work thus done each year to cost, approx¬ 
imately, $12,000,000: Provided further, That of the money hereby appropriated 





FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


275 


and authorized to be expended the sum of $9,000,000 per annum, or so much 
thereof as may be necessary, shall be expended in the protection, repair, and 
construction of levees; and the balance in the construction and repair of bank 
revetment, and for works in the interest of navigation, including the construction 
of suitable and necessary dredge boats and other devices and appliances, and in 
the maintenance and operation of the same. 

Sec. 2. That the watercourses connected with the said river, and any harbors 
upon it now under control of the Mississippi River Commission and under im- 
provement, may in the discretion of said commission, upon the approval of the 
Chief of Engineers, receive allotments for improvements now under way or here- 
after to be undertaken, to be paid for from the amounts herein appropriated or 
authorized. 


. Sec - 3 - That no money herein authorized to be appropriated shall be expended 
in any established levee district in the construction or repair of levees therein 
unless and until assurances have been given satisfactory to the commission that 
local interests protected thereby will contribute for such construction and repaif 
a sum equal to one-third of such sum as may have been allotted by the com¬ 
mission for such work: Provided , That such contributions shall be expended 
under the direction of the commission and in such manner as it may require or 
approve, but no contributions made by any State or levee district shall be ex¬ 
pended in any other State or levee district except with the approval of the 
authorities of the State or district so contributing. 


Mr. Humphreys, I will ask you to proceed. 

Mr. Humphreys. Mr. Chairman, Senator Percy is here as the 
chairman of the Interstate Levee Association, and I will ask him to 
present the speakers. 

Mr. Percy. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, the 
Mississippi Levee Association was formed in January of this year. 
That association is composed of farmers, merchants, business men of 
all kinds, bankers, railroad companies, and all who reside in or are 
interested in the delta of the Mississippi River. It has no paid 
agents except its secretary’s office force. Its president and its board 
of directors give their services free of charge to the association, and 
that association, with its 20,000 enrolled membership, representing 
800,000 people who live in the delta of the Mississippi River, are a 
unit in the support of the Humphreys bill, and they are here to 
present to the committee some of the reasons why that bill should 
be enacted into legislation. In doing that, while we want to present 
the matter with that degree of fullness which its importance calls 
for, we recognize the fact that we are talking to a body of trained 
experts on this subject, and we do not entertain the hope of teaching 
this committee anything, but are simply presenting the views of those 
who think that this is wise legislation, and we shall not make the 
hearings trespass upon the courtesy or patience of the committee any 
longer than necessary. We have selected just one representative from 
each of the States interested, who will present their views to the com¬ 
mittee, and I am quite confident that during the day we shall be able 
to say everything that we wish to say to you. For the State of Mis- 
sippi the matter will be presented by Gen. T. C. Catchings, for 16 
years a Member of Congress and at one time chairman of this com¬ 
mittee. Gen. Catchings will be the first speaker. 


Statement or Hon. Thomas Clendinen Catchings, Former Mem 
ber of Congress from Mississippi. 


Mr. Catchings. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the Rivers and 
Harbors Committee, those who are at all familiar with my services 
as a Representative in Congress can not fail to remember that the 


276 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


better part of my time was devoted to the great problem of con¬ 
trolling the floods of the Mississippi Valley. If there was any one 
question which came before Congress during my 16 years of member¬ 
ship which enlisted my sympathies and my services more ardently 
than any other, it was that question. We hope that if we shall be 
able to get this bill passed, Mr. Chairman, that we will finish a work 
begun more than 150 years ago, for during that whole time those who 
had selected that valley for their homes have been striving as best 
they could from year to year and from season to season to construct 
such artificial works as would exclude the floods. It was a simple 
matter in the beginning. By that I mean to those who began it, for 
at that time the levee system was so defective and so broken that it fell 
far short of confining the floods, and it amounted to no more than local 
protection. It was not to be expected, however, Mr. Chairman, that 
the enormous territory known as the Mississippi Valley, fertile as it 

is, yielding so much to the benefit of the people of the Nation, should 
remain unsettled notwithstanding this ever-threatening difficulty. 
The attention of Congress was directed to this question as far back 
as 1879. Indeed, Congress had considered it some years prior to 
that time; and when I say the attention of Congress was directed to 

it, I mean that the purpose of Congress was first manifested to give 
substantial pecuniary aid to the people who lived in that valley at the 
time the Mississippi River Commission was created. Now, Mr. 
Chairman, the idea had gone forth—I met it constantly, and I now 
meet it everywhere—that these appropriations which Congress has 
been generous enough to make were made with the idea that in some 
way the navigation of the river would be increased. Why, Mr. Chair¬ 
man, in its very inception that was only one of the purposes for which 
the Mississippi River Commission was created. I will take the lib¬ 
erty of reading a paragraph from the first act. The duties of that 
commission in the main were as follows [reading] : 

To direct and complete such surveys of said river, between the Head of the 
Passes near its mouth and its headwaters, and to make such additional surveys, 
examinations, and investigations, topographical, hydrographical, and hydro- 
metrical, of said river and its tributaries as may be deemed necessary by said 
commission to carry out the objects of this act * * * to take into considera¬ 

tion and mature such plans and estimates as will correct, permanently locate 
and deepen the channel, and protect the banks of the Mississippi River; improve 
and give ease and safety to the navigation thereof; prevent destructive floods; 
promote and facilitate commerce, trade, and postal service. 

So you see that Congress did not take the narrow view that it was 
expected to do no more than to improve the navigation of the river. 
It was to increase interstate commerce; it was to protect that valley 
from floods in order that interstate commerce might be created and 
might exist—that, indeed, was the chief purpose of this law, and 
yet, as I have said, I was always met with the statement that we 
do not need to deepen the river to improve its navigation; that it 
is all mythical; it is all a false pretense; that we are coming here 
and asking you to improve navigation that is not impaired; that it is 
nothing but a donation out of the Federal Treasury for the benefit 
of those private-land owners, and yet you see that at its very incep¬ 
tion, one of the chief objects for which Congress Avas Avilling to extend 
its aid was not merely to improve the navigation and make it safer, 
but to prevent these floods, facilitate commerce and promote postal 
service. At that time, Mr. Chairman, when the first appropriation 




FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 277 

was made, such levees as had been constructed had been virtually 
destroyed by the great floods of 1882 and 1883. 

.^ le P eo pl e 5 crippled as they had been by a four years’ disastrous 
Civil War and by the utter loss of credit suffered by the whole 
southern country after the last gun was fired, seemed to have ex¬ 
hausted their resources in reconstructing the levees, such as they 
were, when these great floods wiped them from the face of the earth. 
Familiar with that country as I am and knowing those people as I 
do, I do not hesitate to express the opinion that if Congress had 
denied their appeal for assistance, if they had felt that they could 
only do this work by themselves, the entire Mississippi Valley would 
have been substantially depopulated. They knew then, and they 
know now, as they have always known, that this work was not within 
the means of the people who live in that valley. But when the first 
appropriation was made, I can not describe to you, Mr. Chairman, 
the feelings of joy which permeated that whole valley. The people 
said: “At last, this great Government of ours is going to come to our 
rescue, and out of its abundant resources is going to enable us to 
protect our farms and give us the same facilities for interstate com¬ 
merce that every other section of the country enjoys so that we can 
live as citizens live in all other parts of this country.” The conse¬ 
quence of that, Mr. Chairman, was that, poor as those people were, 
broken down in spirit as they had been, the}^ responded in a spirit 
of cooperation which is almost astounding, and the reports of the 
Mississippi River Commission will teach you the fact, if you have 
overlooked it, that for every dollar which the Government has ex¬ 
pended, those people have expended $3. 

They have not been laggard nor sluggard; they have done every¬ 
thing that their abilities would suffer them to do in cooperation with 
the Government. Like all great enterprises, this was assaulted by 
enemies, sometimes open and sometimes in disguise. It was said 
of the Engineers of the United States Army, the finest body of scien¬ 
tific men on the face of this globe, in my judgment, to whom the 
investigation of this great problem had been submitted, that they 
were not competent to do what they were detailed to do. So the 
theorists came into the field—and it is astonishing how many people 
are swept off their feet by vague theories. It is astonishing how many 
men will listen to the theories of dreamers and leap to their con¬ 
clusions. Why, scientific men do not construct theories first and 
then attempt to fit the facts to them; they find out the facts and then 
they invent a theory which those facts will support. So it was deter¬ 
mined from the very outset by the Mississippi River Commission, 
composed of able and distinguished men, that there was but one 
possible method for controlling the floods and that was by building 
these great earthen walls which we call levees. That finding of 
theirs stands to-day unshaken. There has never been an engineer 
engaged in this work, and I speak not only of those who are and have 
been members of the Mississippi River Commission but of the hun¬ 
dreds of splendid young men who have worked under them, who has 
not said and who will not tell you that there is but one method of 
excluding those floods, and that is by the physical agency of enlarge¬ 
ment of the banks. 

It was early said that what we needed was to have outlets. 
One gentleman came before the committee and he brought a little 


278 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


keg to illustrate his idea. He had a little hole bored near the top 
of the keg through which water could leak. He said: “You can 
pour water into this keg from now until the end of time and you 
never can fill it, because all the surplus water escapes through that 
outlet ”; and he was satisfied that he was correct, and some members 
of the committee were disposed to think he was correct, also. Why, 
gentlemen, they did not understand that he was dealing with a hard 
and fast piece of work, whereas this great river is a body of water 
which, sweeping down through soil of its own creation, eats and 
tears its banks away as it goes. He forgot the law of hydraulics 
that applies to this river, as to all streams, and that is this: That 
a river can maintain no greater channel than is needed to carry off 
floods, and the necessary and inevitable consequence is that if you 
diminish the volume of water that passes down the river you destroy 
its capacity to carry off silt, and it becomes a smaller river. So if 
you maintain this outlet permanently you would have two rivers 
instead of one. Your old river would soon be no larger than the 
outlet. The two together would carry off no more water than the 
original main stem, and both of them would be inferior streams, and 
this the engineers have demonstrated. 

But, Mr. Chairman, at the very time when that outlet theory had 
its adherents, Providence came to our rescue and afforded a most 
direct illustration of its fallacy. In 1890, as you remember, and as 
your reports will show, a crevasse occurred not far below the city 
of Natchez on the eastern bank of the river, known as the Nita 
crevasse, through which more than one-third of all the flood waters 
of that river were carried off. This was not an ordinary crevasse; 
it was an outlet, and by that I mean that the waters that passed 
through that crevasse never returned to the Mississippi River, but 
passed on out into the Gulf of Mexico. Now, you had one-third of 
the flood waters passing out of the main stream of the river. What 
was the effect of that? At the city of Natchez, 50 miles above, the 
gauge did not register a change more than a hair’s breadth. It did 
produce a fall of about 10 inches at New Orleans, and when the flood 
was over the engineers came and investigated and found what they 
always expected would happen, that below this outlet the bed of 
the river had greatly deteriorated, because, as the current which swept 
through the outlet by creating a lateral movement impeded the flood 
of the river and disabled its silt-carrying power. That was the end 
of the outlet theory at that time. Then others came along with their 
theories, which seemed plausible enough at the outset, but eventu¬ 
ally were demonstrated to be defective. It was said: “ What you need 
is to straighten the river; cut through these bends and let the water 
go off.” 

Why, Mr. Chairman, the river runs for about 1,100 miles from 
Cairo to the Gulf. If you could have that river straight, the distance 
would be not over 400 miles, and the result would be that nothing pro¬ 
pelled by steam could navigate that river; and a further result 
would be that there would be no water left in it and in a very 
short time it would literally destroy the noblest stream on the face 
of the earth. These engineers have told us, and have proved it, that 
these great swinging bends through which the river carries its water 
•constitute its life. As the river swings around in one of these great 




FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 279 

bend s a bar forms and the channel is contracted and there is a deep 
channel; a great pool is formed. The sand bar stops the water, and 
you will find water 50 or more feet deep in this pool. Through a 
shallow channel the river crosses the bar and the same thing happens 
on the other side. These pools conserve the flow of the river, and a 
navigable channel over the bars is created by means of hydraulic 
dredges. 

So that these pools, so far from being obstructions, constitute the 
very life of the stream. More than that, if you cut through one of 
these bends and there are abundant illustrations of that, because 
the river itself has repeatedly cut through these bends—what hap¬ 
pens? Whereas the river has been traveling a circuit of 25 or 30 
miles before, it goes right through and falls across to the opposite 
bank as if it were shot from a catapult. After gorging itself 
by eating away the opposite bank, it then crosses over to the other 
side of the river, where it repeats its action. That is necessarily so 
because of the nature of the soil through which this river runs. 
Every foot of ground south of Cape Girardeau was brought there bv 
these very waters we are speaking of. So that when directly as'- 
sailed by a great force such as the current of the Mississippi River, 
it caves badly. That is where revetment conies in. It is to prevent 
these banks from caving in and to secure fixation of these banks. I 
can see the old fallacy of straightening the river looming above the 
horizon again. 

Only recently men have said to me that the solution of the problem 
is to straighten out the river and to cut through these great bends. 
Cut through these great bends, Mr. Chairman, and you will have no 
river at all. Now, we have had all these things to contend with. The 
public mind has been misinformed and prejudices have been created, 
but through it all this splendid body of men, who represent the best 
engineers on earth, have stood as firm as adamant; they have stood 
by their guns unflinching. They have reasons for the position that 
,they have maintained. You will find them all in their reports if you 
take the time to read them. The sum and substance of it all is that 
there is but one method by which you can exclude the floods, and that 
is by the construction of levees. What a splendid lot of engineers we 
have had. I will not notice those who are in charge now, because I 
do not want to be personal, but I remember Gen. Gilmore; Gen. 
Comstock, the most scientific man in the corps; Gen. Rossell, who is 
retired; Gen. Bixby, who is also retired, and many others whom I 
might name. 

When you take the civilian members, in my judgment the greatest 
engineer that ever lived in this country was that splendid old Ger¬ 
man, Col. Henry Flad, of St. Louis. He was really the architect of 
the Eads Bridge. He did what then seemed to be impossible. It is 
cheaper to build bridges now than it was when that bridge was built. 
But that bridge stands there to-day as firm and substantial as any 
on the face of the earth, an everlasting and perpetual monument 
to that great engineer. I remember a time when some schemers 
from a great Western State insisted that the members of the Missis¬ 
sippi River Commission were a lot of nincompoops, and they said 
that they would take charge of the river for $1,000,000 annually and 
maintain a navigable channel, but they did not make this proposal 


280 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER, 


until the commission had demonstrated that it was perfectly and 
easily possible, in low water, to dredge a channel through every bar. 
But that was the method they proposed. They had much to say about 
these bars, insisting that very many obstructed navigation. I wrote 
to Col. Flad myself, knowing that he had given especial attention to 
that feature of the work. He had only 10 days’ notice. I said: 
u Colonel, I want you to come before this committee and tell them 
what you know about these bars.” 

That fine old man came here with the most beautiful set of maps 
that any draftsman ever drew, in which he portrayed every bar from 
St. Louis to the mouth of the Bed Biver; he showed the banks and 
everything else. He said: “ Gentlemen, these are the bars. They 
speak for themselves. Here is where you need a dredge boat. You 
can tell as well as I that this is an attempt to gouge money out of the 
Treasury of the United States.” Oh, he was a great man. Then 
we have on that commission one who is not an engineer by profession, 
but a great engineer, because he has thrown his heart and soul into 
this work, Judge Bobert S. Taylor, of Indiana. If he were here he 
would tell you that, after all his thirty-odd years spent upon the com¬ 
mission, during which time he has listened to every intriguer, every 
theorist, and every pseudoscientist, as well as practical men, that 
the only thing to do to save the Mississippi Biver Valley from floods 
is to build levees. 

Now, gentlemen, it is constantly stated in the newspapers, and'I 
have had some disheartened friends even in the Mississippi Valley say 
to me that the levee system has been a failure. How has it been a 
failure? If it is merely because we have not yet succeeded in 
constructing such a line of levees as would withstand the raging 
fury and force of such floods as have passed down the river for the 
last two years, and afford protection for the valley, I say, “yes.” 
But, Mr. Chairman, notwithstanding the sensational accounts in the 
newspapers, only a part of that great Mississippi Valley has suffered 
from floods. By far the greater part of it has escaped and has been 
cultivated to produce great crops, which have gone into the interstate 
commerce of this country. It is not true that the levee system has 
been a failure. It is true that we have had some crevasses, but the 
reason for that is that we have never built such levees as have been 
recommended by the scientific gentlemen of whom I have been speak¬ 
ing. In other words, we have to cut the garment to .fit the cloth. We 
have had to spread our funds over such distances as we could. We 
have to build the best we can with the funds we have on hand. No 
man has ever pretended to say that we have had in any portion of that 
river just such levees as ought to be there. I make this statement 
now, that for every dollar that the United States Government has 
contributed to the construction of levees, more than $100 has come 
back to the people of the United States from the labor of the people 
in that section. 

Mr. Chairman, I will venture to say that if you will open a train 
of cars passing down either bank of the river, you would find in those 
cars products from Boston, New York, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Cincin¬ 
nati, St. Louis, Chicago, Kansas City, and, indeed, from practically 
ever}^ township in the whole North. Say that we alone are concerned; 
say that nobody is affected by the condition of the Mississippi Biver 
except the man who owns land there. Why, there is such a great 




FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 281 

body of interstate commerce in that valley that if it should be de¬ 
stroyed overnight by a cataclysm, we would be plunged into such a 
condition as was never known before. It is inconceivable. You can 
not calculate it. Where do the North and the East get their finest 
cotton . Right out of this valley. Where does the cotton come from 
which so largely keeps up and maintains the cotton trade? Right 
ou |u e valle y the Mississippi River and its tributaries. 

We buy our mules, our horses, and our meat from the great States 
oi the Yv est; our fabrics, our boots and shoes, farm machinery, and 
all of that from other States than ours. We produce; we do not 
manufacture in the Mississippi Valley. We are producers. We are 
hewers of wood and drawers of water. Now, there is a most exag¬ 
gerated notion as to what profit the planter makes from his planta¬ 
tion. It is a most expensive thing to cultivate a cotton plantation. 
When you think of the large number of mules, farming implements, 
stables and barns that you must have, the expense of keeping up 
your place, your troubles w T ith labor and the uncertainty of prices, 
you will understand what the cotton business means to the planter! 
Why, Mr. Chairman, if the average planter can pay his debts at the 
end of the year with just a little left over to enable him to buy a few 
luxuries for his family, he counts himself a fortunate man. He 
slaves not for his own profit, but for the profit of the United States. 

So that when you help a planter in that valley you are helping 
the people of the United States far more than you are helping him. 
Yet people say that they are slothful and they want the Government 
to do for them what they will not do for themselves. They could not 
do it if they wanted to. They have already done everything in their 
power. Mr. Chairman, I believe, while I am on that branch of 
the subject, I will touch a little upon the interstate-commerce feature. 
I never deluded myself one moment, during my long connection with 
this great work, with the idea that if driven to it we could insist 
upon that great relief from the Federal Treasury if nothing else was 
to be gained except some slight improvement of the navigation on 
the river, because the river can be navigated now. The Government 
does pull out the snags, run its dredge boats down-and clip off the 
tops of these obstructing bars. It does do certain work to our har¬ 
bors so that we can land our steamboats, load and unload them, but 
it is not a perfect navigation, far from perfect, and can be improved. 
Still, we have navigation. 

From the very beginning I have stood upon the words of Congress 
which created this commission, when they were instructed to report 
and provide a means for the promotion of interstate commerce and 
to prevent these destructive floods. But commerce is not merely 
navigation. Commerce is intercourse. It includes everything per¬ 
taining to intercourse. It includes transportation of every com¬ 
modity which you transport. It includes the people who are engaged 
in transporting them, the employees of these great railroad com¬ 
panies, and everything on the face of the earth that the human mind 
can think of which pertains to intercourse between the people of the 
States. The Supreme Court has defined that time and time again. 
Will you tell me how this Congress can promote interstate commerce 
passing up and down the Mississippi Valley in any better way than 
to enable it to exist? Can you tell me how Congress can promote 


282 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI FIVER. 


it unless it removes the obstructions which cause these floods? That 
Congress has the power to remove all obstructions to interstate com¬ 
merce does not depend upon my word alone. 

The United States Supreme Court said in the Debs case that in 
the early days when nearly all commerce was carried on the water 
the attention of Congress was directed almost entirely to the pas¬ 
sage of laws regulating transportation by water, but in the latter 
days traffic has been largely carried by railroads. They said that 
the power of Congress to deal with interstate commerce when trans¬ 
ported by rail or by artificial highways on land rested upon the same 
basis precisely as its power to regulate commerce when transported 
by water; that there was no difference on earth. They said ex¬ 
pressly that if Congress had power to remove obstructions from 
navigation in the interest of interstate commerce when carried by 
water it also had the power to remove obstructions from the great 
highways of interstate commerce which were upon land. More than 
that, Mr. Chairman, I want to call your attention to a statute which 
was the predicate of the greater part of that decision. In that deci¬ 
sion this statute was quoted. I read from section 5258 of the Revised 
Statutes: 

Every railroad company in the United States whose road is operated by 
steam, its successors and assigns, is hereby authorized to carry upon and over 
its road, boats, bridges, and ferries all passengers, troops, Government supplies, 
mails, freight, and other property, on their way from any State to another 
State, and to receive compensation therefor and to connect with roads of other 
States so as to form continuous lines for the transportation of the same to the 
place of destination. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, that statute confers a franchise from the 
United States Government to every railroad in the United States 
operated by steam, and inasmuch as every law passed by Congress 
is the supreme law of the land, that statute overrides every State law 
on the subject. I say it is not within the power of any State in the 
United States to interfere with the operation of any railroad engaged 
in interstate commerce operated by steam. The Government has 
appointed these railroads its agents for the transmission of its mails 
and for the promotion of interstate commerce. It has held as far 
back as 127 United States, the Pacific Railroad case, that the Govern¬ 
ment had authority, if it chose to exercise it, to build railroads itself. 
But, they said, it need not build railroads; it can control railroads 
built by private agencies. They held that such railroads would be 
entitled to the same protection as railroads constructed by the Gov¬ 
ernment itself. That must be so, because Congress has final juris¬ 
diction over the control of interstate commerce, and it can adopt 
whatever agency it chooses to select which, in its judgment, may best 
enable it to exercise that fundamental power which lies in the" Gov¬ 
ernment to preserve this Union. Now, I say that the Supreme Court 
in the Debs case made this statute of Congress the principal basis for 
its decision. Let me read you what the court said exactly. 

Mr. Humphreys. You will file that brief with the committee ? 

Mr. Catch in gs. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Humphreys. That will cover all this matter? 

Mr. Catchings. Yes, sir. Now, for the purpose of showing that 
the Government can exert the same authority over interstate com¬ 
merce when carried on by land that it had long been accustomed to 




FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVEK. 


283 


exercise over that carried by water, the court began by quoting the 
following excerpt from the Gilman case in 3 Wallace: 

1 lie power to regulate commerce comprehends the control for that purpose* 
and to the extent necessary, of all the navigable waters of the United States 
which are accessible from a State other than those in which they lie. For 
this purpose they are the public property of the Nation, and subject to all the 
requisite legislation by Congress. This necessarily includes the power to keep 
them open and free from any obstruction to their navigation, interposed by 
the States or otherwise. 

r l he Supreme Court has italicized the words u or otherwise ” as 
meaning that no matter how the obstruction was created Congress 
had the power to act. 

To remove such obstructions when they exist; and to provide, by such sanc¬ 
tions as they may deem proper, against the occurrence of the evil and for the 
punishment of offenders. For these purposes Congress possesses all the powers 
which existed in the States before the adoption of the National Constitution, 
and which have always existed in the Parliament in England. 

Now, that was the predicate. After referring to the statute which 
I have read, and which I say was the life of this whole decision, the 
court said: 

It is said that the jurisdiction heretofore exercised by the National Govern¬ 
ment over highways has been in respect to waterways—the natural highways 
of the country—and not over artificial highways, such as railroads, but the oc¬ 
casion for the exercise by Congress of its jurisdiction over the latter is of 
recent date. Perhaps the first act of such legislation is that before referred 
to, of June 15, 1S66, but the basis upon which rests its jurisdiction over artificial 
highways is the same as that which supports it over the natural highways. 
Both spring from the power to regulate commerce. 

Further along the court said : 

Up to a recent date commerce, both interstate and international, was chiefly 
by water, and it is not strange that both the legislation by Congress and the 
cases in the courts have been principally concerned therewith. The fact that in 
recent years interstate commerce has come to be carried on mainly by rail¬ 
roads and over artificial highways has in no manner narrowed the scope of the 
constitutional provision or abridged the power of Congress over such commerce. 
On the contrary, the same fulness of control exists in the one case as in the 
other and the same power to remove obstructions from the one as from the 
other. 

I have quoted several paragraphs from that case because they are 
so pertinent. The court again said, and this is very important: 

By that statute Congress assumed jurisdiction over railroads engaged in inter¬ 
state commerce. It is charged, therefore, with the duty— 

Not the power, but the duty— 

It is charged, therefore, with the duty of keeping the highways of interstate 
commerce free from obstructions. 

That is the statute which I read. That is the statute by which 
you have assumed control of the railroads of the country as inter¬ 
preted by the Supreme Court of the United States, your highest 
tribunal. That court said that, having assumed jurisdiction, Con¬ 
gress not only has the power to remove obstructions, but it is its duty 
to do so. You can not escape from that duty in this case. Further 
along the court said: 

We have given to this case the most careful and anxious attention, for we 
realize that it touches closely questions of supreme importance to the people of 
this country. Summing up our conclusions, we hold that the Government of 


284 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


the United States is one having jurisdiction over every foot of soil within its 
territory, and acting directly upon each citizen; that while it is a Government 
of enumerated powers, it has within the limits of those powers all the attributes 
of sovereignty; that to it is committed power over interstate commerce and the 
transmission of the mail; that the powers thus conferred upon the National 
Government are not dormant, but have been assumed and put into practical 
exercise by the legislation of Congress; that in the exercise of those powers it 
is competent for the Nation to remove all obstructions upon highways, natural 
or artificial, to the passage of interstate commerce or the carrying of the mail. 

There is an absolute and final announcement of the Supreme Court 
of the United States as to the power of Congress. But that is not the 
only statute, Mr. Chairman. Congress has gone to the limit for the 
purpose of demonstrating to the States that it did intend to assume 
control over every feature of interstate commerce. You have the 
safety-appliance act; you have the act limiting the hours of labor for 
those engaged in interstate commerce; you have your cattle act, ap¬ 
plying to cattle transported in interstate commerce. I might men¬ 
tion many others, but there is hardly a thing relating to interstate 
commerce that you have not already legislated upon in one way 
or another. The Supreme Court of the United States has said 
by its decisions that Congress has assumed full jurisdiction over 
all matters pertaining to interstate commerce. But Congress has gone 
further than that, Mr. Chairman. By special act it has made every 
railroad in the United States a post road for the transmission of mail. 
That is not limited to interstate commerce, because the mails of the 
Government are carried from point to point within a State as well 
as from one State to another. The Government has power to pre¬ 
vent the obstruction of its post roads. 

The Chairman. That is under a different constitutional provision. 

Mr. Catchings. Well, I will say this, Mr. Sparkman. The court 
has substantially in its decisions mingled the two together. Some¬ 
times they would say, “ Under the constitutional power over post 
roads,” and then they would say “Under the constitutional power 
over interstate commerce and post roads.” But, whether it is under 
the interstate-commerce law or the other—I suppose it does relate to 
the other, because it relates to that which is not interstate commerce 
as well as ‘that which is interstate commerce—at all events it relates 
to the power of Congress to keep these post roads in such condition 
that they can be used for the transmission of mails. 

I am not decrying the States at all. I am a State rights Democrat 
myself. I believe that the States should retain the power that they 
can justly retain, but I believe now, and I have always maintained, 
that there are some powers which the United States Government is 
better able to exercise than the States. In other w r ords, I think that 
whenever you touch interstate commerce, whenever you touch the 
postal service of the Government, you will not be able to find a man in 
the United States who will venture to say that it is within the power 
of a State to interfere in the least possible degree with the operation 
of a railroad engaged in carrying Government mail or in carrying 
interstate commerce. No matter what may be the power of the 
States, the supreme power which Congress acquired when it took 
jurisdiction over these matters comes down and overshadows State 
power and everything else. 

Now, Mr. Chairman. I said I was not resting upon my own theory 
about that. The direct position for which I contend "has been an- 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 285 

nounced by the Supreme Court of the United States. I had better 
read you the statute to which I now refer, because you might think 
that I was not quoting with sufficient accuracy. Of course, I do not 
mean that you would think I was misstating it, because I know you 
would not think I was doing that. I am talking to lawyers, as well as 
general legislators, and I know a lawyer always likes to have the 
statute read to him. Now, in 1866 Congress passed this act in refer¬ 
ence to telegraph companies: 

Any telegraph company now organized, or which may hereafter be organized 
under the laws of any State, shall have the right to construct, maintain, and 
operate lines of telegraph through and over any portion of the public domain 
of the United States, over and along any of the military or post roads of the 
United States which have been or may hereafter be declared such by law, and 
over, under, or across the navigable stream or waters of the United States; but 
such lines of telegraph shall be so constructed and maintained as not to 
obstruct the navigation of such streams and waters or interfere with the ordi¬ 
nary travel on such military or post roads. 

There is a further provision, which I did not quote, to the effect 
that before a telegraph company can become entitled to exercise the 
privileges granted under this statute it must agree that it will give 
preference to messages transmitted by the Government. The Western 
Union Telegraph Co. accepted that condition and afterwards refused 
to pay taxes assessed in the State of Massachusetts, on the ground that 
it was an agent of the Government, made so by the Government of the 
United States. They claimed that the States could not tax them. 
The Supreme Court said there was nothing in the statute to indicate 
that their property should be exempted from taxation, and therefore 
it was taxable under the law of the State of Massachusetts. The 
statute of Massachusetts provided that whenever a tax had been 
assessed, unless it was paid within a certain number of days the State 
could expel the party from the State, and so the State of Massachu¬ 
setts attempted to expel the Western Union company. The Supreme 
Court held that while there was nothing in the statute to exonerate 
this company, yet the State of Massachusetts could not expel it from 
the State because it Avas created by the Government an agent for the 
transmission of Government mail. That is in One hundred and 
thirty-five United States. Now, the telegraph companies have been 
before the court a good many times. In Telegraph Company v. 
Texas (105 U. S., 460), it was expressly held that a telegraph com¬ 
pany which had accepted the restrictions and obligations indicated in 
this statute became a Government agent for the transmission of 
messages or public business. This is the exact language from that 
case. 

The Western Union Telegraph Co., having accepted the restrictions and 
obligations of this provision by Congress, occupies in Texas the position of an 
instrument of foreign and interstate commerce, and of a Government agent for 
the transmission of messages on public business. 

Now, they went further than that, Mr. Chairman, and this did 
seem to he “ going some.” They held that Congress had the right 
to take possession, in part, of all post roads which had been created 
by act of Congress, including postal railroads, for the purpose of 
letting a telegraph company go on and put up its poles and wires. 
So that by the mere declaration of Congress that railroads are post 
roads Congress had assumed such complete control over a railroad 
that it could say to it: “You can not exclude a telegraph company 

30573°—H. Rep. 300, 63-2, pt 2-19 


286 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


desiring to put up its wires, because we have said to you that every 
telegraph company shall have the right to go over a post road and put 
up its poles and wires.” That was in the case of the United States v. 
Union Pacific (160 U. S.). I did not quote literally there, because it 
is quite long, but I will read it if the committee desires. It is found 
at 160 U. S., page 1. 

Now, I want to say this: If there was not a steamboat navigating 
the Mississippi River; if there never would be from now until the 
end of time a steamboat or barge or other water craft navigating 
that river; if there never would be a pound of freight or a passenger 
carried on that river—nevertheless, the Government has the authority 
to protect the interests of interstate commerce and the post roads over 
which it has expressly assumed jurisdiction from obstructions by 
these floods which come. In the Debs case the whole power of the 
Government was drawn out to prevent obstruction of interstate com¬ 
merce and the passage of the mails. The obstructions in that case-• 

The Chairman (interposing). In what volume is the Debs case? 

Mr. Catchings. I believe it is in 158 U. S. Now, I want to say 
again that I never did at any time during my connection with this 
great project delude myself with the belief that our right to Govern¬ 
ment assistance depended upon our ability to show that these appro¬ 
priations were necessary to protect navigation on the river. 

The Chairman. I think—and, in fact, I am quite sure—that for the 
past 30 years every appropriation for the Mississippi River, either 
for the bed of the stream, dredging, revetment, or levees, has been 
made upon the theory of benefits to navigation, or that it was in the 
interest of navigation. 

Mr. Catchings. I do not quite agree with you in that, Mr. Spark¬ 
man. 

The Chairman. I do not recall a single act that shows to the con¬ 
trary. I may be mistaken as to the 30 years, but I know it has been 
going on for some time. 

Mr. Catchings. Well, I can read to you what the Supreme Court 
said about that. It is not necessary that Congress should state in an 
act of Congress what its purpose is. 

The Chairman. Oh, I do not criticize your opinion or argument 
as to the powers of Congress. 

Mr. Catchings. I do not think there is any doubt about that. 

The Chairman. To deal with navigation and the navigation fea¬ 
tures of a stream. 

Mr. Catchings. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. Nor its powers over interstate traffic? 

Mr. Catchings. That is it, exactly. 

Mr. Taylor. Is not navigation a mere incident of commerce? 

Mr. Catchings. It is one of the means by which commerce is car¬ 
ried on. 

Mr. Taylor. Does not commerce cover the word “navigation”? 

Mr. Catchings. I could answer you, Mr. Taylor, by reading what 
the Supreme Court of the United States says about that. I am 
always accustomed to reading the authorities whenever I can. Now, 
in the case of Gibbon v. Ogden (9 Wheat., p. 1), Chief Justice 
Marshall delivered the opinion of the court. John Marshall is the 
one judge of whose career I have any real intimate knowledge, whose 
reputation grows greater and greater as time goes on. Indeed, I 






FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


287 


can say to you that if I believed in special providences, as I have 
sometimes been tempted to believe, I would believe that Provi¬ 
dence had raised up John Marshall to set this Government sailing 
on the right course. There is a great decision delivered by him in 
the early days of the Supreme Court. He seemed to have a view of 
the future which no man of his time or generation grasped at all. 
He was careful in what he said. He was fearful lest, in a particular 
case, he should drop some word which might subsequently impair the 
power of the Government if it was quoted, so he never generalized, 
but decided only the case before him. Now, this is what Judge 
Marshall said in that great case: 

Commerce undoubtedly is traffic, but it is something more—it is intercourse. 
It describes the commercial intercourse between nations, and parts of nations, 
in all of its branches, and is regulated by prescribing rules for carrying on that 
business. 

In McCall v. California (136 U. S., 104) the Supreme Court said: 

Commerce includes the fact of intercourse and of traffic and the subject 
matter of intercourse and traffic. The fact of intercourse and traffic, again, 
embraces all the means, instruments, and places by and in which intercourse 
and traffic are carried on; and, further still, comprehends the act of carrying 
them on at these places and by and with these means. The subject matter 
of intercourse or traffic may be either things, goods, chattels, merchandise, or 
persons. 

In Mobile County v. Kimball (102 U. S., p. 691) the court said: 

Commerce with foreign countries and among the States, strictly considered, 
consists in intercourse and traffic, including in these terms navigation and the 
transporting and transacting of business and property as well as the purchase, 
sale, and exchange of commodities. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, w 7 e are all praying from the bottom of our 
hearts that you may see your way clear to pass this bill. We have 
a splendid system of levees already constructed. They are great and 
substantial and they have cost millions of dollars. As long as they 
remain in an incomplete condition, they are subject to obstruction, 
more or less, and when a levee is destroyed now, it is expensive to 
replace it. In the early days we built very small levees in my sec¬ 
tion, because so small a part of the Mississippi Valley was protected 
at all. The result was that the flood waters could spread over the 
whole basin and the flood was not so high. But now, since the levees 
have been built all over the basin from Cape Girardeau down—what 
would you say, Mr. Percy, is the average height of the levees? 

Mr. Percy. I would say about 25 or 30 feet. 

Mr. Catchings. Now, let us say 20 feet high. They aim to build 
so that for every 1 foot high you have 2 feet laterally. Therefore 
you would have 40 feet on each side, which would be 80 feet, and 
then you have got a crown of 8 feet, which would be 88 feet. Is that 
right, Mr. Percy ? 

Mr. Percy. Yes. sir; but none of that has been put up to the 
plans of the commission. 

Mr. Catchings. The result is that if one of those levees breaks 
the water has a considerable fall and it works great damage. And 
when it works such destruction you will find many people ready in 
their despair to exclaim that the levees are a failure. But they are 
not a failure. In our levee district, if we had a few miles of levees 
destroyed, it would take up all the revenue from the whole district to 


288 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


replace those levees. So we hope you will be able to give us this sum 
of money. According to the estimate of Col. Townsend, this money 
will complete those levees to the standard which the Corps of Engi¬ 
neers has itself set. I want you to understand, gentlemen, that we 
have not ourselves fixed what is to be the size of these levees. We are 
not asking you to build such levees as in our judgment should be 
built. We are asking you to build such levees as your own engineer 
officers say should be built. We pin our faith to them. I know that 
T have not the qualifications to devise plans for such a great work. 

The Chairman. General, you rely upon the engineers the same as 
i his committee would? 

Mr. Catchings. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. In a hearing which this committee held last winter 
on the subject of levees on the Mississippi River it was stated by one 
of the speakers that those levees and the necessary revetment work 
would cost a great deal more money than this bill suggests or pro¬ 
vides for. It was stated that even the levees would cost more than 
i hat sum, and that with the revetment work it would cost altogether 
something like $225,000,000. 

Mr. Catchings. That is not my understanding, Mr. Chairman, 
that the levees will cost so much. 

The Chairman. I know, but we have to protect the levees. 

Mr. Catchings. You mean considering the levees in connection 
with the revetment work? Is that what you mean? 

The Chairman. Yes; or the revetment in connection with the 
levees. 

Mr. Catchings. Yes. 

The Chairman. Because the revetment is to prevent erosion 
and incidentally to protect the levees from being washed into the 
river. Now, it was stated by one of the members of the Mississippi 
River Commission, Mr. West, who was before us at that time, that 
there was something like a million and a half or two million dollars 
worth of levees washed away every year for the past 25 years. 

Mr. Catchings. Well, I can not state whether that is true or not. 

The Chairman. Of course the deduction he drew from that state¬ 
ment of facts was that we should build these revetments for the 
purpose of protecting the levees. 

Mr. Catchings. Yes, sir. I could explain that very easily, Mr. 
Chairman. In the early days when we began to build levees we had 
no help except our own pocketbooks. We built our levees right along 
the banks of the river because the people cultivated to the banks and 
we needed their revenues. For that reason the lines of levees were 
built along the bank of the stream. 

The Chairman. Well, Mr. West confined himself in his statement 
to the last 25 years. 

Mr. Catchings. Well, of course, that includes many of these old 
levee districts, but I say now that when the United States engineers 
draw the line for the construction of a levee they have in mind the 
establishment of a line of levees which, even without revetment, will 
last the longest. They put them far enough back so that the banks 
of the river will not be caved back to them for a great many years at 
least. 

The Chairman. My purpose in mentioning the matter at this time 
is to call attention to the great expense that seems to be ahead of us 




FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 289 

m our efforts to improve the lower river and to protect the stream. 
Now, Mr. West gave the figures at something like $224,000,000, I 
think, but in a conversation he had with me afterwards he said he 
thought the w r hole thing would cost a quarter of a billion dollars. 

Mr. Catchings. Well, Mr. Chairman, I do not wish to criticize my 
good friend Capt. West, but I do not wish to hitch my wagon to his 
opinion. 

Mr. Humphreys. The commission made the report upon a request 
from the Rivers and Harbors Committee to report what a complete 
revetment of the river would cost from the mouth of the river up. 
In the opinion of the Mississippi River Commission no such exten¬ 
sive revetment as that is necessary, but in view of the fact that we 
asked what it would cost they reported about $150,000,000. The 
engineers of the commission, Col. Townsend and others, say that the 
revetment that will be necessary—we do not know just how much, 
fifty or sixty or seventy-five million dollars, or whatever it may be in 
the course of the years, not now—can very properly be carried on at 
the rate of $3,000,000 a year; that even if it should cost $75,000,000, 
that would run over 25 or 30 years yet. So this estimate of Mr. West, 
which is not agreed to by all the members of the commission, is what 
a complete revetment of that lower river would cost, plus the levee, 
but it is not at all what is being asked for now. 

Mr. Catchings. Oh, no. I want to say, Mr. Chairman, that during 
my whole connection with this project, which covered a long period 
of time, I never heard the suggestion or intimation made by any 
engineer in connection with the work that it was at all possible that 
# the Government would ever be expected to revet every caving bank. 

The Chairman. In the last two years the Mississippi River Com¬ 
mission made a report showing that that revetment work was to 
cost more than $90,000,000. 

Mr. Catchings. You mean the whole revetment? 

The Chairman. Well, such as they thought would be necessary to 
protect the levees and prevent erosion at all places needing such 
protection. 

Mr. Catchings. I can not say, Mr. Sparkman. 

The Chairman. Well, I do not think I am mistaken, but we have 
the report here. Now, Mr. West states in reference to the levees: 

So, in my opinion, you need not expect to get out short of something like 
$70,000,000 or $75,000,000 ultimately for levee construction. 

Now, going further he said: 

I am going to be perfectly candid and make a statement that may not please 
the people of that lower valley or the members of this committee. 

He was referring to the Rivers and Harbors Committee— 

but I do not believe that yon can ever complete the levee system of the lower 
Mississippi until you have given a fixation to the banks of the river. I will go 
further and say that if you, by some process of magic, had to-day on the banks 
of the Mississippi River a levee system that was up to the ultimate height and 
volume that we estimate it should be. you could not maintain that, system 
against disaster until you have prevented the caving of those banks. 

Then he states what in his judgment would be necessary and he 
fixes the whole amount at $228,000,000 for revetment and levees. 


.290 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

Mr. Catchings. The commission does not ask for that. You un¬ 
derstand that it is not essential that every caving bank should be 
revetted. For instance, this is a great swing [indicating] and this 
is a caving bank [indicating]. The river comes in here with its 
mighty force and strikes the other side. Now, if you hold the other 
side the river will very soon stop caving and the bank will be here 
[indicating]. It starts across at this angle [indicating] and strikes 
the bank on the other side of the river, and then it is carried down 
the river. I heard a certain engineer say that he believed that if you 
had a few points on the river from Cape Girardeau down to the 
mouth, standing like the rock of Gibraltar, that in the course of 
time the river would accommodate itself to the restraint thus put 
upon it. 

Mr. Taylor. Where would you suggest that we get advice on that 
subject? 

Mr. Catchings. Well, I would summon Col. Townsend, the presi¬ 
dent of the Mississippi River Commission, one of the ablest engi¬ 
neers in the service and one of the finest gentlemen I have ever 
known, whose integrity and truthfulness in all matters has never 
been questioned. I would put him here in front of this committee 
and then fire questions at him until I got tired. 

Mr. Taylor. Is not Mr. West a member of the commission also? 

Mr. Catchings. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Taylor. What about his statement? 

Mr. Catchings. Well, I do not want to talk about Mr. West. He 
was a district engineer when he went on the work. Between Mr. 
West and Col. Townsend, I do not want to draw a comparison. Col. 
Townsend has been engaged in that work for 30 years, and I do not* 
like to draw a comparison between him and Mr. West. 

Mr. Taylor. I do not seek that comparison. 

Mr. Catchings. Well, I would summon Col. Townsend. 

Mr. Taylor. Him alone? 

Mr. Catchings. Well—and anybody else you pleased. 

Mr. Taylor. Well, you know better than I do. 

Mr. Catchings. Then, if you want my advice, the next man would 
be Mr. Ockerson, a member of the commission, who is a civil engi¬ 
neer, and he has grown up with the work. He is familiar with the 
work on the Mississippi River and he is a very capable man. 

Mr. Taylor. Well, I do not want you to misunderstand me. 

Mr. Catchings. Oh, no. 

Mr. Taylor. You stated that you did not rely upon yourself, even 
with your long experience. 

Mr. Catchings. I do not. 

Mr. Taylor. And I asked you upon whom you would rely. 

Mr. Catchings. I certainly would not rely upon myself. This is 
certainly too great a problem for me. In fact, I am not a scientific 
man. I am a very plain man and deal with ordinary facts. 

Mr. Taylor. I am sorry you have had to get down to my level. 

Mr. Catchings. Well, sir, I had the pleasure of serving with you, 
and one of my greatest ambitions was to get up to your level, and I 
never could overtake you. 

Mr. Taylor. I never had the idea you had that ambition before. 

Mr. Catchings. Now, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I am afraid I 
have greatly imposed upon you. Another suggestion which is fre- 



FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 291 

quently made now is that we must keep back these floods by building 
reservoirs. That is an old, old, old story to those who have worked 
and lived in the Mississippi Va'lley. Mr. Chairman, during the last 
flood, just below the mouth of the Ohio River, by actual measurement 
2,300,000 cubic feet of water passed per second. Can you grasp'that? 
That is beyond me. 

Mr. Taylor. That is away beyond me, too. 

Mr. Catchings. Now, in addition to that, you must take into ac¬ 
count the water flowing into the river below that point. That water 
comes from the Arkansas, the White, the St. Francis, the Red, 
and the Washita on the left bank, and the Yazoo River system on 
the right bank, to say nothing of many minor streams. If you will 
consider that, you will have some idea of the amount of water that 
has got to be stored in reservoirs if we are to get relief. I think I 
saw some figures in this Ohio River preliminary flood report that 
might be a little helpful, that might enable you to grasp this. The 
report of this board shows that in Ohio there are three reservoirs, 
having a total storage capacity of 7,220,000,000 cubic feet. You can 
take a pencil and paper and figure out in how short a time the Mis¬ 
sissippi River could fill those three reservoirs. It would not take 
long, and yet there are three great, enormous reservoirs in the State of 
Ohio, which, no doubt, subserve a great and useful purpose of a local 
character. But when you come to compounding a sufficient quantity 
of water to preserve us in the lower valley, why, it is a different 
proposition. 

Mr. Booher. Do you know on what rivers in Ohio those reser¬ 
voirs are? 

Mr. Catchings. Yes, sir. I will give you those in a minute. 

Mr. Taylor. What is that paper, General? 

Mr. Catchings. I am reading from a report just submitted to the 
Secretary of War, a preliminary report of the Ohio Flood Board. 

There is another thing here that is very interesting on the subject 
of reservoirs. They investigated the question as to the feasibility 
of storing the flood waters above the city of Pittsburgh. They fig¬ 
ured that the drainage area of the rivers above Pittsburgh was 
10,152 square miles, which was just 5 per cent of the whole drainage 
area of the Ohio Valley alone, and they said it would cost $34,000,000 
to protect that 5 per cent of the Ohio Valley alone. So you can see 
what it means when you talk about reservoirs to store up all these 
great waters. 

Then, again, Mr. Chairman, if you had your reservoirs all full— 
and you would have them full if you suffered from the same condi¬ 
tions that we suffer from—they would no longer be reservoirs. I am 
not contending against local reservoirs to subserve local purposes. 
You understand, for instance, that the floods which worked such 
great destruction in Ohio, Indiana, and Ilinois were local floods that 
pased away quickly; in less than a week after the damage was done 
the floods had retired. 

Now, compare that with the Mississippi flood. It is not with us 
a matter of days or weeks; it is a matter of many long, weary, and 
dreary months that this great volume of water requires to pass down. 

So, to build reservoirs which may catch a sudden downfall of water 
and hold it and let it off so as to relieve that area, the flood ceasing 
within a week, is a very different proposition from storing up the 


292 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


water gathered in from 27 or 28 States, the whole drainage area be¬ 
tween the Allegheny and the Rocky Mountains, a flood of water 
which takes months and months to pass off. 

The Chairman. Just let me say a word there, speaking only for 
myself. I think the matter of reservoirs is not a dead question by 
any means, but one we are likely to confront very soon. Personally, 
I may say, I agree fully with you about that. I do not think it is 
possible to protect the lower Mississippi River by any system of 
reservoirs at the heads, or along the banks low enough down to do 
any good, of those great tributaries of the Mississippi River. 

As you are aware, there is quite a propaganda now in favor of 
just that thing. I think it is all wrong, but at the same time it is 
something we have to meet. 

Mr. Catchings. Mr. Chairman, this is just what I have to say 
about that: You can not progress one step in these matters with 
safety unless you walk along the road pointed out to you by the 
Engineers of the Army. You can not accept the fiat of a layman, 
no matter how great and generous he may be, no matter how broad 
and boundless his imagination may be, no matter how widespread 
his benevolence may be, no matter how high his patriotism may 
be in his desire to serve mankind. At last, when you come to spend 
the Nation’s money, the money raised by taxing the people, you have 
to go to the only people on the face of this earth who are compe¬ 
tent to advise you- 

Mr. Taylor. The Army Engineers? 

Mr. Catchings. The Army Engineers. 

Now, sir, I am for reservoirs whenever you can get the engineers 
to show you that they can, at any reasonable expense, build reservoirs 
to save us from floods. When they will do this, I say God speed 
the reservoirs. But no man who lives on that river and who is a 
daily observer of the unparalleled volume of water that flows down 
it can be made to see that it is humanly possible to find anywhere a 
sufficient resting place for those waters in the shape of a reservoir 
or storage basin. 

Why, some years ago, Mr. Chairman, when that movement was at 
its height, it w r as seriously suggested, and by competent men, too, 
that the Government should buy the St. Francis Basin—a splendid 
body of land of about 6,500 square miles—should buy that and levee 
it and make that a reservoir and turn the flood waters into that. 

Why, Mr. Chairman, those people in the St. Francis Basin would 
laugh if you talked to them about making a reservoir there. That 
is one of the most fertile basins on the Mississippi River. It is filled 
with valuable productive plantations, manufacturing of all sorts is 
going on there, and there are beautiful cities and towns and villages 
there, and those people are among the best citizens we have. 

I mention that for the purpose of showing that in those days those 
who pressed this reservoir proposition could find but one spot in the 
United States which they then thought might answer, and that was 
this 6,500 square miles of the Mississippi Delta, and they proposed to 
turn it into a frog pond. That was the only place that in those 
days—my days—anybody even suggested would at all suffice for a 
storage basin. Of course, that was preposterous. 

Now, I do not want to interfere with the reservoirs at all; if Mem¬ 
bers of Congress believe they can be made to subserve a useful local 




FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI EIVEE. 


293 


purpose, they are entitled to have them, but I want it understood that 
in my opinion there can be no such thing as a system of reservoirs 
which is going to give us in the Mississippi Valley the slightest con¬ 
ceivable relief from floods. 

I go back to my original proposition, which is the stand that every 
Government engineer who has been connected with the work of the 
Mississippi River from its beginning until now has taken, and that 
is that there is but one method of restraining those floods, and that is 
through the agency of levees. That is my bible; I stand upon that. 
I shall preach that gospel, Mr. Chairman, as long as the engineers 
say that is the truth. If the time ever comes when they say they have 
been wrong all these years, I will still follow them. I will say, “ You 
did the best you knew how, but if we can save the valley by means of 
these reservoirs, let us have the reservoirs.” I will do almost any¬ 
thing to save this valley. 

I tell you, Mr. Chairman, I know those people so well, know their 
courage, their heroism, the sacrifices they have made, that there is 
almost nothing on this earth I would not do to help them in this 
matter. I have been entirely out of public life for the last 12 or 
15 years and never expected again to make a speech in public, and 
this is the first I have made—if you choose to call it a speech—in 
public since I retired from Congress, and I expect it to be the last. 
But when those gentlemen said they thought I might help them, 
I said, “All right.” I did not believe that I could, myself. I am 
not vain enough to believe I could help them, but I said, “If you 
think so, I will come, and I will do the best I can.” And I have done 
it. [Applause.] 

The Chairman. We are very glad to have heard you. 

Statement of Hon. Luke E. Wright, Ex-Secretary of War, 
Memphis, Tenn. 

Mr. Wright. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, 1 
was pressed into service at the eleventh hour by the gentlemen having 
charge here and representing the association to fill the place, how¬ 
ever inadequately, of Mr. Albert S. Caldwell, in speaking for Ten¬ 
nessee before this committee. 

The people of Tennessee have, so far as injuries resulting from 
overflows of the Mississippi River are concerned, a very small in¬ 
terest in this matter. The western boundary of Tennessee, as you 
know, fronts the Mississippi River, and there is only a very narrow 
fringe of what you might term in legal parlance “bottom land”; 
that is, land which overflows. Being very far up toward the head of 
the levee system, the injuries from breaks in levees, so far as relates 
to Tennessee alone, are very small, because up toward Cairo the pres¬ 
sure lasts a very short time. 

But, looking at it in a larger way, those of us who live on the 
banks of the river as I do and who are familiar with the results of 
these periodical overflows which affect the people of the delta have 
a tremendous interest, not only a sentimental interest but a pecuniary 
interest, because our trade relations with those people are most 
intimate, and our social relations with them are equally intimate, and 
we know by actual observation just what an overflow means. We 


294 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


know, furthermore, by actual observation of these vast reaches the 
tremendous resources of this imperial domain—for it is that, speaking 
with moderation—included within what is known as the Mississippi 
Delta. 

It is impossible to overestimate the resources of that great region. 
We have heard of the richness of the Valley of the Nile as the very 
synonym of richness itself, like the riches of Croesus; but the fact is 
that this great alluvial delta is from five to seven times as large in 
area as that portion of Egypt which is made the subject of cultivation 
by irrigation through water taken from the Nile. 

That being so, it seems to me a waste of time, at least at this late 
hour, to say that the reclamation of this great valley—this great 
delta—is not of national importance. I remember, Mr. Chairman 
and gentlemen, three or four years ago when there was a break in 
the Colorado River, out in Arizona or New Mexico, which threatened 
to make what is called the Salton Sea. There the Colorado River, 
as most alluvial rivers do, puts its channel on a sort of ridge. The 
Colorado River made a break through its banks. There had been 
probably 150,000 acres of those magnificent alluvial lands along the 
banks of the river which had been brought into cultivation through 
the medium of irrigation by water taken from* the Colorado River. 
Those lands were threatened, and, moreover, a break in the conti¬ 
nuity of the Southern Pacific Railroad was threatened. 

I believe, if I am not misinformed—if I am wrong, some of you 
gentlemen, I am sure, will correct me—that, it being a matter of 
emergency, the Southern Pacific road itself advanced the money 
necessary to reinstate the river in its original position and protect 
life and property at that point under a formal agreement with the 
Government, which was afterwards carried out, to pay them back. 

Mr. Booher. The Government has never paid that back, I believe. 

Mr. Wright. Then the Government ought to be ashamed of itself. 

Mr. Booiier. That is a fact; they were never reimbursed. 

Mr. Wright. I was not informed as to that. But I was going to 
say that, in my judgment, that was a national object; that was to 
prevent disaster to interstate commerce. And yet that is so small as 
to be hardly worth mentioning in comparison with the importance of 
protecting the alluvial lands of the Mississippi Valley. 

Now, I do not intend, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the com¬ 
mittee, to weary you with a further discussion as to whether the 
Congress has power to deal with the question of mere leveeing, inde¬ 
pendent of post roads or the improvement of navigation. Gfen. 
Catchings has discussed that subject in a most interesting and learned 
way, and anything I would say in addition thereto would have a 
tendency to dilute and obscure what seems to be an unanswerable 
argument on the subject. 

I want simply to make this suggestion in that connection. Very 
often—and it is owing very largely to the constant warfare that has 
been going on since the foundation of the Government between the 
strict constructionists and the latitudinarians—very often, in order 
to avoid debate and accomplish results, expressions are put into bills 
that quiet the consciences of Members who are a little dubious about 
constitutional authority and who yet w^ant to see a certain thing done, 
and I imagine that these statements contained in these various bills 
which have carried appropriations to the levee system, upon the 





FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


295 


theory that it improved navigation or protected post roads, were 
put there for that purpose. 

the Chairman. Something more than that, General, I fancy. It 
was the purpose to keep within that particular constitutional pro¬ 
vision. I, for one, in making appropriations for the improvement of 
rivers and harbors, would not like to get away from the idea that 
such appropriations are made solely for purposes of navigation. It 
may be that there is another constitutional provision under which we 
could go further, but the purpose has been to serve commerce, and I 
would not make appropriations even for the building of levees except 
upon the theory that their construction would conserve navigation. 

Mr. Wright. I see the force of that, Mr. Chairman, but I must say 
it has always occurred to me that we rather stick in the bark when 
we talk about railroads being commerce and navigation being com¬ 
merce. They are merely instrumentalities of commerce. 

The Chairman. I want to say, General, that I agree with } r ou 
there; perhaps not entirely in the deduction that you would seek to 
draw from your premises. But, as I said, I would not like to get 
away from the idea of appropriating alone for the benefit of com¬ 
merce. 

President Taft last year, in his speech before the National Rivers 
and Harbors Congress, took the position that we ought to get away 
from it, that we ought to improve the Mississippi River, build levees 
on it, and he seemed to admit that it could not be done under the 
commerce clause of the Constitution, but claimed that in doing that 
work we ought to plant ourselves upon the public-welfare clause of 
the Constitution. 

Mr. Wright. That is just wdiere the ex-President and I differ. 1 
think we can plant it very well upon the interstate-commerce clause. 

The Chairman. I think so myself; that is my view, and the view 1 
have always entertained. 

Mr. Wright. I do not think we need to get out into the limitless 
expanses of the general-welfare clause to accomplish the results we 
have always desired. I have always believed that the jealousies and 
friction between extreme State rights men and what formerly were 
Termed “Federalists” has been largely the result of a failure to 
understand really what the Constitution means, on both sides. 

I remember, for instance, reading some years ago a letter of Mr. 
Jefferson to a friend of his in Virginia, written while he was our 
minister to France, during the period that the convention which 
created our Constitution was in session. He had this conception, and 
while I do not agree with a great deal that Jefferson said, I do agree 
about this. He said—and afterwards, by the way. he reiterated the 
same thing in another letter—that in all matters in which the State 
could not successfully legislate on—all international matters, as he 
put it, “ in which,” he says, “ I include interstate matters ”—there 
the National Government should be supreme and exclusive in its 
powers. 

Now, he had the concept, which I think is a true one, that inter¬ 
state and international affairs stand upon the same footing so far as 
the powers of Congress are concerned with reference to interstate 
commerce. Take this very project which we are now discussing here. 
It. is perfectly obvious that no single State can deal with the subject. 


296 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


The boundless Mississippi River along the Delta is the boundary of 
six States, some on one side and some on the other. No single State 
can inaugurate a levee system that is worth a row of pins, because no 
State has any extraterritorial jurisdiction. A levee built along the 
front of Tennessee would be worthless. A levee built along the shores 
of Louisiana would be equally futile and of no account and a waste 
of money. 

So that, even if the States had the ability, if the people of the 
States had the ability by taxation to raise money adequate to levee 
their respective river fronts, nothing could be done. It is in its 
very essence an interstate matter, and therefore a national matter. 

Now, that seems to be so obvious as to be almost beyond debate. 
I have never believed myself that there is any neutral zone between 
the powers of the National Government and the powers of the State 
governments. Certainly the intention of the fathers—if they were 
the wise men we fondly believe them to have been—was to exhaust 
the whole powers of government, to put the whole powers of 
government somewhere, and not to have a sort of “ no man’s land *’ 
between National and State authorities. 

Now, therefore, when we say that States can not deal with it, 
inevitably the conclusion is reached that the National Government 
must deal with it; that is, if it can be done. And it seems to me, 
therefore, that the real question here for discussion is, first, Is this 
a national project? And, second, Is the appropriation required to 
be expended worth while in the interest of all the people of the 
Nation? 

Now, I think it is not too much to say that this is a national 
project. Why, England, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the com¬ 
mittee, has spent, I am reliably informed, nearly or quite $50,000,000 
in damming the Nile, and in perfecting a system of irrigation works 
for the lands contiguous to that great stream. How much land have 
they reclaimed by that expenditure? Last year, 2,500 square miles. 
And here, for approximately the same sum, you can reclaim 29,000 
square miles of the richest land the sun ever shown upon. Therefore 
it seems to me idle to talk about whether or not this is a national 
project, whether it is worth while to expend the money provided 
always it is to be well expended. 

Now, when we come to that I must confess myself, like Gen. 
Catchings, not to have any expert knowledge. I know that with 
the inadequate levees we have to-day there has been great develop¬ 
ment in this Delta country, but I also know that probably 80 per cent 
of that vast area is to-day lying fallow and idle and unproductive 
because of the lack of assurance of complete protection against in¬ 
undation. As you gentlemen will doubtless understand, as I inti¬ 
mated with reference to the Colorado River a few minutes ago, the 
tendency of these alluvial streams seems to be to raise their banks, 
and they slope away gradually from the water. Now, in the old 
days—which I can remember, by the way, because my father was a 
farmer in the Mississippi Delta—in the old days when they had no 
levees there were certain high lands that never went under, or if they 
did go under it was only at extreme high water and for a short time. 
Those lands were really not injured by inundation; they were rather 
benefited than otherwise, because the soil was quickened by the de¬ 
posits. But the great body of that country was inhabited, as Gen. 





FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 297 

Catchings very properly suggested, principally by bullfrogs, snakes, 
and mosquitoes. And yet the lands away from the river are fully 
as good as the lands upon the banks. Now, these levees, inadequate 
as they are, have had the effect to gradually extend the area of cul¬ 
tivable land. And yet, with all that, the great body of that vast 
territory is to-day untouched by the point of a plow. 

Now, to bring into the general wealth of the country such a vast 
amount of land as that, with the consequent general increase of 
wealth which accrues to the whole nation, seems to me to be a national 
object in every sense of the word, and seems to me to be worth the 
expenditure of the comparatively small sum involved in making 
these levees absolutely safe, so that all of it may be brought into 
cultivation. 

Upon the question as to whether this amount of money, or some 
other large amount of money, should be immediately expended, it 
seems to me I may speak with some degree of assurance upon that. 
What is the point, let me ask you, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, of 
periodically giving to the Mississippi River a sum that is inadequate 
effectively to accomplish the result we all desire? Where a man 
wants to build a house and has not the money immediately avail¬ 
able, he frequently starts by building two rooms, living in them, and 
gradually adding to it as his funds permit. That.is all right, and 
that would very well be possible here if it were not for two facts. 
One is that the periodic destruction of property in the Delta oc¬ 
curring at the breach of these inadequate levees each year would pay 
the cost necessary to make them absolutely impervious to the attack 
of the flood. Therefore it is a false economy from that standpoint. 

In addition to that, as I am sure my friend Col. Townsend very 
well knows, about half the money he gets from Congress for the Mis¬ 
sissippi levees is devoted to repairing the breaches made by the floods 
in the levees, which is a pure waste of money. Therefore, it seems 
to me the part of wisdom not to take twenty bites at a cherry, but to 
finish the matter at one time and get the results. 

The Chairman. Righ there, General, let me ask you a question. 
Where we have made appropriations for the purpose of protecting 
private property from inundation and destruction, how do you dif¬ 
ferentiate the matter of making appropriations for the Mississippi 
River and the valley of the Mississippi River from the making of 
appropriations for the protection of property at other places where 
overflow occurs? 

Mr. Wright. Say in the Ohio River? 

The Chairman. In my State, for instance, or the State of Georgia. 

Mr. Wright. I do not differentiate it if it rises to the dignity of 
being a matter of general welfare. 

The Chairman. I understood you to say, though, that you did not 
care so much about that public-welfare clause in this connection. 

Mr. Wright. I do not, but I think the real purpose—and that is 
the point I intended to make—that the real object of all these con¬ 
stitutional provisions is not—for instance, take interstate commerce; 
it is not simply to see the steamboat run up and down the river or a 
railroad run across the landscape. Those are mere means to an end. 

The Chairman. Those are the very questions that we are suggest¬ 
ing here, and the very questions that we find in our way. For in¬ 
stance, people in other portions of the country—take the State of 


298 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


Georgia and the Savannah River. A Member of Congress, and a 
very prominent member too, comes to us and says, “ If you are going 
to spend money for the purpose of protecting private property on 
the Mississippi River, then you must spend it down here on the 
Savannah River.” And my people in Florida say, “ You must also 
come down and spend it on the Caloosahatchee River, where a great 
amount of destruction is done every two years.” And my friend 
on the right suggests the Brazos River too, and there are one or 
two others. 

Taking all these matters together, the engineers alarm me at least, 
and, I think, every one else to whom they talk, because they begin 
to talk in terms of billions when they speak of accomplishing these 
results. Now, as long as we are going ahead with the improvement 
of the Mississippi River for the purpose of conserving navigation, 
where we can do that conscientiously, we are meeting with no serious 
trouble, except a little criticism as to the size of bills occasionally. 
That is the point. 

Mr. Wrtght. I see, Mr. Chairman, the force of your suggestion 
and the difficulty which naturally confronts you and every committee 
which makes appropriations. Of course, there must be, in the nature 
of things, aside from the question of power, the question of utility 
always; that is, the question is: What is all this worth? That must 
be in the nature of things, in the experience of every practical legis¬ 
lator. 

These projects of which you speak I am not prepared to say 
whether they are good, bad, or indifferent. I am not opposing them. 
If they are good, they ought to be attended to as soon as the Govern¬ 
ment can get around to it. There is no difficulty about improving 
harbors and rivers, and a great deal of money, I imagine, if the truth 
were known, has been wasted in those improvements. I remember a 
witticism of “Sunset” Cox a great many years ago. He said that 
a great many of the rivers that were appropriated for would be most 
economically improved by macadamizing them. [Laughter.] 

The Chairman. Yes; that is a favorite criticism made by people 
who, as a rule, really do not know the situation. As a matter of fact, 
while some money has been wasted, while we have been expending 
$700,000,000, a;s you know, through long terms of years, it would 
be a wonder if we had not wasted some, but the amount of money 
wasted has been relatively very small, in my judgment. 

Mr. Wright. I have no doubt that is true, sir. I am not criticiz¬ 
ing this committee, or any committee of Congress, because I would 
not dare do so on such information as I have, but I know in a general 
way there has been a disposition to improve harbors and tide rivers 
without the least difficulty, and very often when the improvement 
hardly rose to the dignity 0 f being a matter of general value. 

The Chairman. That has been because of the demands of for¬ 
eign commerce. The railroads of the country, if you have studied 
that—and I know you have—have been doing, and the people have 
let them do, all the interstate business, or the greater part of it. 
But the railroads can not do the foreign business, and we on the 
Gulf and on the Atlantic and the Pacific and on the Lakes have to 
improve harbors to accommodate this foreign commerce and a great 
deal of the coastwise commerce too. That is why we have apparently 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 299 

neglected rivers; we have not really neglected them, but have per¬ 
haps done more for the harbors in the past than we have done for 
the rivers. 

i Mr. Wrigiit. That, I have no doubt, is true, Mr. Chairman, and I 
hope you will not understand what I said by way of criticism, be- 
i ause I did not mean it in that sense. But I say this much, that many 
of these matters are relatively of very small importance as compared 
with the improvement of the Mississippi River, because they are very 
often of purely local value. 

Now, the Mississippi River has been held, I believe, by decisions 
of the Supreme Court of the United States to be under maritime 
jurisdiction and declared to be a great inland sea, and surely when 
there is a territory tributary to that great inland sea, a territory of 
unexampled fertility, with resources undeveloped practically, cer¬ 
tainly in making appropriations it can not be said that Congress is 
straining its powers, nor can it be said that Congress is not showing 
that practical wisdom which, to my mind, is the best and final test 
of a good legislator. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. I should like to ask you this ques¬ 
tion, General. Is there any difference between the project of improv¬ 
ing the Mississippi River by levees and any other project in the 
country, except in size, where the conditions would be the same, as 
far as protecting from floods is concerned ? 

Mr. Wright. Yes—I am not sure I understand the scope of your 
question. You mean any work of internal improvement? 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. No; I mean of the same character. 
Along the same line the chairman suggested, I should like to know 
whether there is any difference from a national standpoint between 
improving the Mississippi River by protecting the surrounding coun¬ 
try from floods by levees and any other project in the country, any 
other river where it is necessary to construct levees, except in size. 
I realize, of course, that the Mississippi project is the largest, but I 
fail to see any difference from any other standpoint. 

Mr. Wright. You mean, whether the power to do so does not spring 
from the same source ? 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. Yes, sir. To make it clearer, 
suppose that by spending $100,000 upon a river in Georgia the Gov¬ 
ernment at large could get a bigger return, what difference is there? 

Mr. Wright. There is none. If they are interstate rivers, of course 
they all stand upon the same footing so far as relates to improving 
their navigation, and incidentally protecting the people who live 
along the banks, because navigation is not the ultimate aim of com¬ 
merce. It is one of the instrumentalities of it. At last it is the man 
behind the levees that raises the crop and loads the ship and loads 
the railroad car, and the fact that you protect him in deepening the 
channel or in doing any other work of internal improvement ought 
not to scare you away from doing it. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. Here is the question in my mind: 
What answer are we going to make to the representatives of other 
portions of the country that come to us and ask that we make appro¬ 
priations to protect lands from overflow along rivers in other sec¬ 
tions of the Nation if we do it in the lower Mississippi? 


300 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


Mr. Wright. I really do not know, sir, what answer you would 
make. You might find, I think, a very good one. In the first place, 
it might be a matter relatively unimportant. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. Except as to size. 

Mr. Booher. Let me suggest this to you: There is 41 per cent of 
the area of this country that dumps its water into the Mississippi 
River, and you people down there get it, do you not ? 

Mr. Wright. Yes. 

Mr. Booher. Do you not think it appeals more strongly to the 
people of the country than one little river in Georgia or Florida or 
Texas that only dumps its own water? 

Mr. Wright. I do not regard that as a conclusive argument, but 
it has to be taken into consideration. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. If you take that argument, what 
is to be the answer to the suggestion that there are several places in 
the West where practically all the water that comes down comes off 
the Government forest reserve, which is owned by the Government 
itself ? 

Mr. Booher. I would refer that to Mr. Pinchot. [Laughter.] 

Mr. Wright. I do not care to prolong this discussion. I think 
the projects must stand or fall upon their own merits; but whether it 
pays from a business standpoint to improve a particular river, that 
is the practical question behind it all. I know there are some very 
ambitious projects before Congress; the Newlands bill is one of them. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. I had one in mind that is quite a 
large project, that of the Sacramento River in California. 

Mr. Wrigiit. I am sure that this committee when it comes to deal 
with that will deal with it from an intelligent and patriotic stand¬ 
point, and not with respect to the mere individual wishes of the 
people immediately interested. Of course, there is always some¬ 
body benefited more than anybody else by any legislation involving 
the expenditure of money, however legitimate it may be. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. And that is no reason for not 
expending it? 

Mr. Wright. That is no reason for not expending it. 

I suggest now that the whole question narrowed down here, after 
the question of constitutional authority is disposed of, is whether this 
is a legitimate expenditure of the amount of money asked for, or any 
other amount of money. It seems to me that the Congresses pre¬ 
ceding this have settled the question that it is worth while to im¬ 
prove the Mississippi River, to build levees upon the Mississippi 
River; and of course, we all know when we get away from subtleties 
and technicalities, behind it all is the purpose to protect these people 
from floods. Why disguise it? 

Mr. Gallagher. Do you not think this is a larger question than the 
question of navigation and interstate commerce ? 

Mr. Wright. I do, as I have already endeavored to say. 

Mr. Gallagher. Would it not be better to treat it as such a ques¬ 
tion before the public than to try to tack it onto some bill ? 

Mr. Wright. It is a rivers and harbors bill, gentlemen; it relates 
to the improvement of rivers. Frankly, I am not very particular 
what grounds you put it on, just so it is done. [Laughter.] 

Mr. Taylor. General, I would like to ask you one question. You 
say the real final question for us to solve is whether it would pay? 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 301 

Mr. Wright. Yes. 

Mr. Taylor. Now, in order to find that out we ought to know what 
it would cost. Whose burden is it to show us what would be the real 
cost? 

Mr. Wright. Well, I should say, like Gen. Catchings, the men 
whose training and intelligence enable them to give you concrete 
information. 

Mr. Taylor. Have you gentlemen prepared any evidence of that 
kind in regard to the cost ? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Wright. I understand that the president of the Mississippi 
River Commission has given his views as to the amount of money 
necessary to put these levees beyond danger from floods. 

Mr. Taylor. That is the main question upon which I want evi¬ 
dence. 

Mr. Percy. We will submit evidence upon that, Mr. Taylor. 

Mr. Taylor. I shall be very glad to see it. 

(Thereupon at 12.50 o’clock p. m. a recess was taken until 2 o’clock. 
after recess. 

At the expiration of the recess the committee reassembled. 

Statement or Mr. B. F. Bush, President of the Missouri Pacific 

& Iron Mountain Railroad, 30 Portland Place, St. Louis, Mo. 

Mr. Bush. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I appear 
here as a citizen from the Mississippi flooded district and as a repre¬ 
sentative of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway 
Co., which has a large mileage contiguous to the Mississippi River. 

The aggregate mileage of the railroads I have the honor to repre¬ 
sent before your committee, which would be seriously affected by 
such a flood as that of 1912, is some 3,700 miles, all lying within the 
Delta of the Mississippi River. If this mileage were put out of 
commission, not only would the people and the commerce of the 
country traversed by the lines so affected be subject to injury and 
loss, but people and commerce in other sections remote from the river 
would suffer also. 

As can be readily confirmed, the overflow of the Mississippi is a 
matter which in no small degree injuriously affects the best interests 
of the country at large. As an instance of this—one out of many— 
a manufacturer of Baltimore, with a plant more than 1,000 miles 
aw T ay from the river, places his loss by the 1912 flood at upward of 
$ 200 , 000 . 

In appearing before your honorable committee it is not my purpose 
to indorse any single project, however large or meritorious, but to 
advocate the adoption of a national and comprehensive policy under 
which the Federal Government may take adequate measures to con¬ 
trol the floods of the lower Mississippi and to protect the lives, health, 
and property of its citizens living in that section of the country. 

This whole subject has been so fully and so ably discussed many 
times before you and in public addresses and publications that it is 
scarcely possible to present anything new on the matter; still the very 

30573°—H. Rep. 300. 63-2, pt 2-20 


302 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


important economic aspect of the problem, fraught with the most 
beneficial results to the entire country if rightly solved, is so impres¬ 
sive that I am emboldened to give expression to a few commentaries 
on that phase of the subject. 

There is not now any question as to the right and duty of the 
National Government to make necessary appropriations for the care 
and regulation of the water highways of the country—its own prop¬ 
erty. This is not only a Government of the people, but a Govern¬ 
ment for the people, and the fact that private holdings may be bene¬ 
fited by improvements of navigation constitutes no excuse for failure 
to make proper appropriations and expending them. The Missis¬ 
sippi River is not only the fathers of waters, but the father of floods, 
and the Government ought to be prepared and active in preventing 
its destruction of life and property. 

The experience of the past has demonstrated that the States ad¬ 
joining the river can not satisfactorily accomplish the work of pre¬ 
venting the overflows. The States of Arkansas, Mississippi, and 
Louisiana have expended millions of dollars for levee construction 
since 1865, yet notwithstanding the vast outlay there are periodic 
breaks of the levee, resulting in sweeping inundations of the country 
with consequent direful effects. 

If the Southern States bordering on the river worked as a unit 
under the supervision of one head for the prevention of overflows, I 
believe the efficacy of their work would be much greater than it 
has been. When, however, as is the practice, each State perforce 
assigns the levee work to districts and each district works in its own 
independent way, instances are developed under which some of them 
have not the means to properly maintain and strengthen the levees, 
or, through inattention or lapse of efficiency on the part of super¬ 
visors, the work may be neglected. The strength of a chain is gaged 
by its weakest link, and in like manner the strength of the State 
levee system as now conducted is only in proportion to the strength 
of its weakest district link. 

The waters of 31 States, or more than 41 per cent of the entire 
area of the country, are discharged through the lower Mississippi 
River. It would seem the plain duty of the National Government to 
make ample provision for its safe conduct to the Gulf and thereby 
insure against the enormous devastation such as accompanied the 
high water of last year and again this year. 

I might say here that last year the line of road of which I am 
president had 450 miles out of commission for 90 days, and I do not 
believe that anything I could say here or anything that anyone who 
addresses you on the subject could say would appeal to you as would 
the situation there if you could have seen the terrible disaster and 
suffering that that flood caused the people living in the district 
traversed by those miles of railway. 

The Chairman. Just a moment. You say that something like 
400 miles of your road was put out of commission? 

Mr. Bush. Yes. 

The Chairman. That suggests quite an obstruction to commerce. 
Will you give the committee an idea as to the extent of that? 

Mr. Bush. You mean the amount of tonnage? 

The Chairman. Yes. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 303 

Mr. Bush. I could only do so in a rough wa} 7 . Of course, the busi¬ 
ness that backed up there was tremendous. There was a great deal 
of land that was not cropped. We figured on that 450 miles that it 
affected our earnings something like a million dollars, but I have 
not gone into the analysis of that, as to exactly what it would mean 
in dollars and cents or tonnage. But, as I say, there was a large 
part of that land that was not cropped, and, of course, some of it 
had had only about a half a crop. 

The Chairman. I am not speaking so much of the destruction of 
crops as the obstruction to interstate traffic—the crossing of the river, 
for instance. As I say, the fact that 400 miles of road was put out 
of commission suggests a great deal along that line, and wondered 
if you had some figures on the subject. 

Mr. Bush. I shall be very glad to prepare some and furnish them. 

The Chairman. I would like to ask you to what extent, if at all, 
were the United States mails stopped? 

Mr. Bush. Oh, there were villages and towns in there that were 
without mail service for quite a period of time. Of course, it was 
got in to them by rowboats and in other ways—in some cases on hand 
cars—as soon as possible, but there was quite a period of time that a 
good many places were without mail service. 

The loss of property from the flood of 1912 has been estimated at 
$40,000,000, and from that of 1913 at $10,000,000. The loss of hun¬ 
dreds of lives and the tribulation and suffering of those who lost 
relatives, friends, and homes make a most piteous appeal to our hu¬ 
manity, to our civilization—indeed, to our Nation’s conscience—to 
avert further disasters of like character. Further, a review of the 
situation from a utilitarian standpoint forcibly challenges us to a 
careful consideration of the great economic advantages to be derived 
from the conservation and development of the vast resources lying 
within the rich alluvial lands that would and should be spared by 
flood prevention. Surely “ some one has erred, some one has blun¬ 
dered,” if our Nation closes its eyes to this its obvious duty. 

The recent census returns show that of the land area of the State of 
Louisiana less than 36 per cent is in farms, but of this land in farms 
5,163,000 acres, or 49| per cent, were unimproved. Mississippi shows 
of its land in farms over 9,549,000 acres, or 52 per cent, unimproved. 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. I did not catch those figures. 
You say 52 per cent of the farms are unimproved? 

Mr. Bush. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. Is that 52 per cent of the total 
area ? 

Mr. Bush. No; just of the farms where the title is absolutely 
vested in the settler. 

Arkansas shows 17,416,000 acres of land in farms, but of this, 
9,340,000 acres, or 54 per cent, are not improved. While all of this 
unimproved farm land in the three States named may not be due 
to the ravages of the Mississippi floods, still we know there are within 
the Delta, subject to flood, approximately 20,000,000 acres of the 
richest and most fertile land in this country. The census returns of 
1910 show there were 3,500,000 acres of this land then under 
cultivation, but the destructive character of the 1912 and 1913 
floods has materially decreased this acreage. The greater part of 


304 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


the Delta, if freed from inundations, is susceptible of cultivation and 
capable of a very high production of all fruits of the soil, and could 
support as large a population as any other agricultural section of the 
country of like area. 

The addition of 15,000,000 acres of fertile wealth-producing land, 
such as would follow from levee protection for these alluvial lands, 
would confer great benefits to the country at large, as well as to the 
immediate Delta district. Such an addition to the cultivated acreage 
would be more than the improved acreage now under crops in either 
the States of New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, or 
South Dakota; in fact, only 11 of the 48 States of the Union have a 
larger acreage under cultivation than that which would be thus 
rendered tillable and which would be equivalent to a new State of 
important agricultural value being annexed to the Union—a new star 
in our country’s flag. 

I believe it was good policy for our Government to extend its aid 
toward irrigating the arid lands. The wisdom of this is shown by 
the reclamation of a large area now under cultivation which con¬ 
tributes to the wealth of the country and the comfort and prosperity 
of its people. 

Three years ago there were 7,241,000 acres of such lands under 
cultivation which produced crops to the value of $181,617,000—a 
substantial addition to the wealth of the country and justified the 
outlay from every viewpoint. The National Government has ex¬ 
pended thus far for this work about $90,000,000. 

If proven by the results shown that the expenditures for the recla¬ 
mation of the arid lands are fully justified, then I believe your 
petitioners can readily demonstrate that the beneficial results follow¬ 
ing the protection of the Delta lands will be much greater. The cul¬ 
tivation of 15,000,000 more acres of this land, if planted in cotton, 
sugar cane, or diversified crops, would yield hundreds of millions of 
dollars annually. Ten million bales of cotton could easily be raised 
in that area, which, with the by-product, under present prices would 
produce over $700,000,000. 

The Chairman. That is, above what is already produced? 

Mr. Bush. I mean, based on what they are doing there, if this 
land were under cultivation we could raise 10,000,000 bales of cotton 
in this area, which, with the by-products, would increase our wealth 
over $700,000,000. 

The Chairman. Ten million bales not now being raised ? 

Mr. Bush. Yes, sir. 

Think what an impetus would be given to trade, industry, and im¬ 
migration by such an addition yearly to the wealth of the country to 
be circulated throughout all the arteries of commerce in the land. 
This vast sum annually would be an enormous accession to our 
Nation’s Treasury as against an annual—comparatively paltry—cost 
for protection of $2,400,000, which would be the interest charge at 
4 per cent on the $60,000,000 required to accomplish the work. 

Cotton consumption is increasing more rapidly than is the supply, 
and as the lands available for its growth are limited, it behooves this 
country to utilize to the fullest extent all such lands within her 
domain. Our exports of grain and meat are on the decline by reason 
of larger populatipn and greater consumption at home. These in 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


305 


the past largely aided in swelling our balance of trade with foreign 
countries. With proper attention to our cotton growth and expor¬ 
tation we can in a measure make up for the decline, and I can not 
too strongly urge that this attention must be most assiduous, as there 
is danger that our supremacy in cotton commerce may be wrested 
from us. The chief European countries are now spending millions 
of dollars in fostering cotton culture in their colonies. The English 
premier had a bill passed recently appropriating $15,000,000 for the 
purpose of experimenting in growing cotton in the Soudan. He 
thinks the English spinner should be independent of this country’s 
supply and that the growth of cotton should be fostered where it 
will be under British control. If, however, we are alive to our op¬ 
portunities and avail ourselves to the full measure of our resources, 
we have nothing to fear in this branch of our foreign trade. 

I believe that, excepting the railroad question, there is no more 
important subject immediately before the people of the United States 
at this time than that of national control of the flood waters of the 
Mississippi. Our Presidents have consistently declared that the 
Federal Government should build and maintain the levees. That 
the people are alive to its full importance is evidenced by the declara¬ 
tion in the platforms of the three great political parties in the cam¬ 
paign of the last year, where it is held that the control of the Mis¬ 
sissippi River is a national problem and that the consequence of its 
overflow imposes an obligation which can be discharged only by the 
Federal Government. 

In song and story have been told the deeds of men who caused the 
Great American Desert to flee before them and become a vagabond 
and fugitive on the face of the earth, but their deeds are no more 
heroic, their accomplishments no greater than the valiant people of 
the Southland, who, undismayed by what seemed to be insurmount¬ 
able difficulties, have pressed ever onward in their efforts to save 
those lands from the ravages of the Mississippi River. They have 
conducted a national campaign—they have performed their part 
well, but this great Nation of ours ought not longer hesitate, but 
hasten to their rescue and do the governmental work, which under the 
Constitution of the country devolves upon it. [Applause.] 

STATEMENT OF MR. R. B. OLIVER, ATTORNEY AT LAW, CAPE GIRARDEAU, MO. 

Mr. Oliver. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I was 
admonished on yesterday by the secretary of the association that you 
were a busy body of men, that you were lawyers with trained minds, 
and that you would be addressed this morning by gentlemen of na¬ 
tional and international reputation. I was reminded, therefore, that 
perhaps it would be well for me to boil down what I would like to 
say, in order to economize your time, and in accordance with that 
suggestion I will now tell you what we think of this problem, we of 
the upper end of the Delta. 

The recent disastrous floods in the valley of the Mississippi have 
emphasized the necessity of the Federal Government taking up the 
great problem of how to control the overflow of the Mississippi River 
and its tributaries. 


306 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


The States, under our form of government, have no right to dam, 
divert, or interfere with the waters of the Mississippi River without 
the consent of the Federal Government. The control of these flood 
waters is therefore primarily a question for the Federal Government 
and not for the States. 

The flood waters that came down to the mouth of the Ohio last 
April were the storm waters that fell on 700,000 square miles of terri¬ 
tory north and west of Cairo. The flood waters that passed in front 
of the city of Cairo and joined the waters of the Mississippi were 
the storm waters that fell on 300,000 square miles north and east of 
the great State of Illinois. 

Nevertheless southeast Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana on the 
west and Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana on the east are com¬ 
pelled, under present conditions, to largely care for these accumu¬ 
lated and combined flood waters and guard them as best they can to 
the sea. The great bulk of the flood waters that have wrought such 
havoc in the valley have had their origin and source above the States 
named. These flood waters come from 1,000,000 square miles of 
watershed—coming from Alabama, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, 
New York, Ohio, and Indiana on the south and east; from Michigan, 
Wisconsin, Nebraska, Minnesota, Kansas, and Iowa on the north; 
and the Rocky Mountains on the west. 

It is not right, it is not just that five States of this Union should 
bear the great burden and suffer the injury and the destruction of 
the flood waters that originate in 24 of the States lying north of them 
[applause]—waters, remember, that belong to and which are under 
the control and jurisdiction of the Federal Government. 

The question was asked this morning by the gentleman on my right 
as to what was the difference between national aid for the control of 
that great stream and national aid for any other navigable water. 
The difference is this, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee: 
I have shown you, and the map on the wall behind you illustrates the 
fact, that the water that is accumulated and poured into this valley 
at the city of Cairo comes from 24 States and are the storm waters 
of those States, while the waters originating in Oregon or any other 
interior State are the waters that rightly belong to the territory of 
that State. The devastating waters that affect this valley are waters 
from the States along whose shores those waters lay. [Applause.] 

That is the distinction, and I hope, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen 
of the committee, you will bear it in mind. It is not the waters of 
Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi 
that we are asking you to protect us against. It is the flood waters 
that you pour upon us at the confluence of these two mighty rivers 
at Cairo. These are the conditions upon which we come before this 
committee and ask for the control of a stream that belongs to the 
Government and not to the States. 

We of the valley feel that we have a right to assemble here and 
confer with you, and, through you, petition, yea, demand that the 
Federal Government shall take some affirmative and speedy action, 
and enact such laws as will provide a means of controlling these 
flood waters and avert the further destruction of life and property in 
the valley. 

For half a century the United States Government has been study¬ 
ing the problem of flood prevention of the Mississippi River. It has 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 307 

had in its employ during all this time a corps of the most eminent 
engineers in the land. These engineers have collected all the avail¬ 
able data that can be obtained and have made careful, personal ob¬ 
servations of this river and its overflow. If it is possible for the 
Government to obtain concrete and specific information necessary to 
a proper solution of the question, our Mississippi River Commission’s 
engineers have obtained that information, and the commission has 
pointed out to Congress the solution of the problem. That solution 
has commended itself to every thoughtful student of the land. It 
is supported and backed by the experience of all ages and of all 
countries. There is, therefore, no need for further delay on the 
part of Congress for want of accurate information as to what to do 
and how to do it. 

One of the members of your committee this forenoon directed a 
question to Gen. Catehings and also to Gen. Wright as to whom you 
should bring before you to furnish the necessary data upon which to 
legislate. I repeat what Gen. Catehings and Gen. Wright said, Mr. 
Chairman. If it is possible for the Government to obtain authentic 
and detailed concrete information, haven’t you got it? If you have 
not, then in the name of high heaven when do you expect to get it, 
if a study of this problem for 50 years does not furnish it? 

The Mississippi River Commission assures us that if the National 
Congress will place at their disposal $12,000,000 for five consecutive 
years, or a total of $60,000,000, the commission will be able to control 
the flood waters in the Mississippi Valley and put an end to the 
annual loss of life and property occurring at each overflow of this 
river. The Humphreys bill, now pending before your committee, 
is based upon the recommendations of the Mississippi River Commis¬ 
sion, and we of the valley indorse it. [Applause.] 

There is not a man in the United States but who would respond 
to the call of his country if a foreign foe should land upon our shores 
and undertake to imperil the lives and despoil the homes and prop¬ 
erty of citizens owning 20,000,000 acres of our land. Yet, we 
supinely sit down and witness annually the angry overflow of the. 
Mississippi River in its mad rush to the sea, destroying the lives and 
property of our citizens owning 20,000,000 acres of our alluvial lands, 
without seriously attempting to control or abate it. 

These 20,000,000 acres of alluvial land represent a territory larger 
than the combined area of five States of this Union. Delaware, 
Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and New Jersey have 
only 27,248 square miles, while the alluvial lands of this great valley 
contain 29,000 square miles. You, therefore, have a waste to a great 
extent of an area equal to five of the great and important States of 
this Union, lying idle because of inattention and the neglect of 
Congress to perform its full duty to that section of the country. 

The floods of the past two years have at last aroused the people to 
the importance of the question, and we are here now requesting from 
the Federal Government that protection and attention which the 
lives and property rights of our people demand. We are not here 
as suppliants or mendicants, begging for alms from the National 
Government, begging, as we have heretofore, for tents to shelter us 
and for bread to support us during the flood time, but we are here 
to-day in our right and strength and manhood, as American citizens, 


308 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


demanding, if you please, that the National Congress shall award to 
us what is rightfully ours—protection from the overflow of the 
Nation’s waters. This is a work for the National Government, and 
we want the Government to assume it. [Applause.] 

From an economic as well as a patriotic standpoint, it is the duty 
of Congress to take up this great national problem at once. It is far 
better for our country and for its material prosperity that Congress 
should give attention to this great problem—this great national water 
question—than it is to go abroad and construct an oceanic canal in 
South America. It is far better for our Nation and its people that 
we develop this great inland river and make for it a waterway over 
which seagoing vessels may ride into the heart of our country than 
it is to spend millions upon canals, ports, and coaling stations in 
other lands. 

But we are not asking—we are not even wanting—a cessation of 
any of the great works and improvements that our Government has 
undertaken in other lands; we are here insisting and demanding that 
if there are only funds enough to make improvements of a pre¬ 
scribed and limited character, then and in that event we are insisting 
that the appropriation should be made for the protection of our homes 
and our home land and to develop them and their resources before 
we go further in the development of our interests in other countries. 

The National Government has exercised its jurisdiction and power 
in the enactment of kindred laws to the one we ask. I shall not, Mr. 
Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, undertake to enter upon 
a discussion of the constitutional right of Congress to make this ap¬ 
propriation. The distinguished gentleman from Mississippi who 
spoke this morning, who has devoted 16 years of the best part of his 
life to the study of this problem, has thoroughly discussed this ques¬ 
tion, and it seems to me that it leaves nothing further to be said. 

But it perhaps would not be amiss to say that when we adopted 
the Constitution, that Constitution about which we talk so enthusiasti¬ 
cally, was adopted and ratified by the people of the Colonies before 
we owned the whole of the Mississippi River and its delta. And, in 
the construction of that great instrument, do not forget, gentlemen, 
to bear that important fact in mind. We only had to the west bank 
of the upper part of the delta, and the northwest territory was then 
an unknown land. It is not rational, it is not right, in the eye of the 
age to undertake to say that when that great instrument was penned 
the framers of the instrument had in view the problem of the floods 
and the control of the Mississippi River. 

I have said that the National Government has enacted irrigation 
laws. It has made appropriations for post roads. Why not then 
exercise that jurisdiction for building levees for the protection of our 
fertile lands in the Mississippi Valley? Irrigation law T s have for 
their purpose the bringing in of water to make arid lands more 
valuable. Levee laws have for their purpose the keeping out of flood 
waters from valuable lands. The former law brings water into a 
district; the latter law keeps it out of a district. The legal principle 
underlying the legislation is identical. The public has an interest in 
both. By keeping the flood waters out, the health of the inhabit¬ 
ants of the valley is conserved, commerce promoted, and the value 
and productiveness of the land is increased. With secure levees, and 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 309 

in time the revetment of the banks of the Mississippi River to prevent 
erosion, the problem of flood control is solved. 

When this is done the problem of draining and reclaiming the 
overflowed alluvial lands adjacent to the river and back from it will 
be a question for the States and the individual landowners to solve,. 
It is being solved rapidly now in most of the States. 

In 1893 and 1894 Missouri undertook, through the aid of State 
laws, to authorize the building of a levee from the highlands south 
of New Madrid to the Arkansas State line on the South. Under this 
State law the St. Francis levee district was organized. This district 
undertook and did build a levee from Point Pleasant, in New Madrid 
County, to the Arkansas line, a distance of 50 miles. The revenue 
for this district was and is derived from special assessments levied 
upon the land benefited by protection. Up to this time that levee 
district has expended on its 50 miles of levees $580,360.82; and 
although this levee resisted the mighty floods of 1912 and 1913, its 
board of directors are now engaged in extending it 10 miles north, 
to the city of New Madrid, and in reinforcing and strengthening the 
entire system throughout its length. 

The effect of building this and other reaches of levees in Missouri, 
notably 53 miles in Mississippi County, Mo., at a cost of $500,000 is 
seen from a table of assessed valuation furnished me by the county 
clerks of the various counties through which such levees have been 
constructed. This table shows that Pemiscot County’s land values 
have been increased more than 400 per cent since 1890; that Missis¬ 
sippi County, Mo., has increased its assessed taxable wealth more 
than 200 per cent in the same time, although Mississippi County has 
suffered from broken levees in both of the floods of 1912 and 1913. 

You wull understand, gentlemen, from the physical formation of 
the great plains at the confluence of these two great rivers, that they 
come together with the accumulated storm waters from 1,000,000 
square miles and dump themselves with all their fury upon the west 
bank of the Mississippi River at a place which corresponds to Mis¬ 
sissippi County, Mo. 

There is the strategic point; there is the difficult place where w© 
call upon the National Government for immediate relief. As was 
well said by Gen. Wright, I believe, this moring, what good would it 
do for Arkansas to protect her river front if Missouri did not under¬ 
take to act? And there is no power under our form of government 
whereby the State of Arkansas can compel Missouri to act, and it is 
useless for us in the extreme southeast portion of the State border¬ 
ing on the Arkansas line to undertake to construct levees along the 
shores of Pemiscot and New Madrid. Therefore, you will at once 
see the importance of national legislation and clearly differentiate 
between a stream of this character and a stream that originates 
wholly within a State, as was so clearly stated by the gentleman from 
Missouri in answer to the question of the gentleman from Wash¬ 
ington this forenoon. 

I return now to the increase of these values. Scott County has 
increased her assessed taxable wealth more than 300 per cent and 
New Madrid County has increased her taxable wealth more than 250 
per cent within the same time. 


310 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

Now, gentlemen of the committee, I have talked to you about the 
four counties that lie contiguous to the river. Stoddard County, 
lying west of the newer counties, has increased her assessed taxable 
wealth more than 300 per cent within the same time. 

Remember, gentlemen, if you please, that this territory about which 
I am talking now is the territory that Gen. Catchings said some 
visionary dreamer was talking about converting into a basin to hold 
the angry waters of the river. 

In the same length of time, since the construction of these first 
levees along the west shore of the Mississippi River, those five 
counties whose shores are washed by this great stream have added 
54 State and National banks. In the same length of time we have 
constructed more railroad in that section of the State than was con¬ 
structed in all the balance of the imperial State of Missouri. It is 
the only portion of that great State where the agricultural popula¬ 
tion has made material growth. The last census will show you that 
those counties that I have named, to wit, Pemiscot, New Madrid, 
Mississippi, Scott, and Stoddard, increased their population after 
the construction of these levees 48 per cent. 

This phenomenal growth in the taxable property and population of 
the different counties in the southeastern part of Missouri is then due 
to what cause? Primarily, to two causes. The first is the con¬ 
struction of the levees by the citizens living along the bank of the 
river, believing, and firmly believing, that in the course of time the 
National Government would take over this great work and undertake 
to utilize it and harmonize it into one common system. The other 
cause that has contributed to this great increase of wealth in that 
portion of the State has been the reclamation of the lands lying back 
of the levees and made available to reclamation by reason of the 
levees. 

Eight counties in southeast Missouri have now in course of con¬ 
struction two levee districts, embracing 750,000 acres, one alone— 
the Little River drainage district—originating at the foothills in Cape 
Girardeau and running in a southwesterly direction to the State line, 
a distance of 90 miles, and averaging 9 miles in width, embracing 
550,000 acres of land. The benefits to that one district have been 
judicially, through the formalities of a court, determined and fixed 
at over $15,000,000; over $15,000,000 has been judicially declared to 
be the result of the reclamation of that 550,000 acres of land. And 
yet, gentlemen, that great improvement will count for naught if the 
waters of the Mississippi are permitted to be poured over the lands 
adjacent to the river and devastate them. 

We have waited down there year after year for affirmative ac¬ 
tion on the part of the National Government to perform its duty 
before we undertake that great enterprise, now that the engineering 
features of that great district have been determined by the best 
engineers in civil life and tacitly approved, as Col. Townsend knows, 
by a department of the Government itself. 

The Chairman. Have you any figures there, Mr. Oliver, that you 
could lay before the committee’ showing the increased value of all 
the real estate in the district that has been improved or protected by 
the levee system ? 

Mr. Oliver. I have not it here, but I have a part of it, Mr. Chair¬ 
man, in my room. I asked for it last Saturday on my way here. As 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 311 

I have stated to you, I can give you both the area and the assessed 
valuation. I am not talking about inflated values, but what the 
people are paying taxes on. 

The Chairman. I should be glad to have it. 

Mr. Oliver. I want to say, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, that the 
construction of the St. Francis Levee district in Missouri, in con 
junction with the St. Francis Levee district in Arkansas, which will 
be spoken of shortly b}' Judge McCulloch, of Arkansas, was the direct 
cause of the construction of the water-level railroad from St. Louis to 
the Gulf known as the Frisco. Without it it would have been impos¬ 
sible to construct and operate that road. Why, before those levees 
were built, gentlemen, there were less than 500 miles of railroad in 
this great Delta, and to-day, as Mr. Bush has told you, since the 
States have undertaken to do the best they can with this great prob¬ 
lem, there are now 3,700 miles of trunk line in operation, and this 
great system of road was interfered with, as Mr. Bush tells you, from 
60 to 90 days last year. While he did not give you the figures for 
the preceding year, they were practically the same^ as those of us who 
live in that country know from personal experience. We live there; 
we are familiar with the conditions. It is not, as some gentleman 
has said, a theory; it is a condition that confronts us there. It is a 
condition that we appeal to you, gentlemen, and through you to the 
Congress of the Nation, to relieve us of. And we feef that as com¬ 
mon citizens in a common cause, laboring for the upbuilding of a 
common country, we will have your cordial support. [Applause.] 

Perhaps, gentlemen, it would not be amiss in this connection to 
state that under the act of Congress of September 28, 1850, the Na¬ 
tional Government gave to the States the wet swamp and overflowed 
lands in which they lie. That is how the most of these alluvial lands 
in the valley of the Mississippi were acquired by the States. Under 
that grant Missouri alone—and I speak locally, because I want to speak 
accurately and authoritatively—has received over 400,000,000 acres 
of those lands. 

We in the southeast portion of Missouri have reclaimed, since the 
beginning of the construction of these levees, 1,500,000 acres of our 
swamp and overflowed lands, and that within the last 10 years, in 
Missouri. And, as I said a moment ago, 750,000 acres are now in 
course of reclamation. Ditchers are to-day at work in that great val¬ 
ley. There are in that one district drainage ditches and levees aggre¬ 
gating 700 miles in length, a distance equal to that between the great 
cities of St. Louis and New Orleans. That great district, with its 
550,000 acres in that one political subdivision, is now in course of 
reclamation, and in Butler County, which lies west of us, are 200,000 
acres more, known as the interriver drainage district. So if we seem 
anxious or overzealous, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, we feel that it 
is our right; we feel that our homes and all we have and the pride and 
glory of our great State are involved in this great question, and we 
offer that as an excuse for any overzealous enthusiasm that your 
speaker may display. 

Missouri, within the past 12 years, has reclaimed 3,546,185 acres of 
land, at a cost of $16,185,385, or at an average cost of a little over 
$5 an acre. 


312 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI EIVEE. 


Holland expended $5,516,000 for the reclamation of Haarlem Lake, 
an area of 43,700 acres, at an average cost of $128 per acre. Mis¬ 
souri has reclaimed three and one-half millions of acres at a cost of 
but little over $5 per acre. What Missouri has done in this great 
work the other States south and north of her have done and are do¬ 
ing, or will do. 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. Holland is now engaged upon the 
enterprise of reclaiming quite an area at a cost of $211 an acre. 

Mr. Oliver. I took these statistics from a standard authority in 
the Chief Engineer’s office. 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. This is a new project that I am 
speaking of. 

Mr. Oliver. I am speaking of the Haarlem Lake alone, which cost 
$128 per acre for its reclamation. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. What are those lands now worth 
that you reclaimed for $5 an acre? 

Mr. Oliver. I am glad you asked me that question. I want to 
say to you that in 1890 I stood upon the courthouse steps in the 
then county seat of Pemiscot County, and bought the first land I 
owned in that county at less than 50 cents per acre at a sheriff’s sale. 
As I walked into the courthouse I made a bid, at the suggestion of the 
counsel who was controlling the execution. I passed on, and after 
a moment the sheriff approached me, touched me on the shoulder, and 
said to me that he wanted $55 for the purchase of the lands that had 
been knocked down to me. I said, “ Why, I don’t want those lands. 
Tell Maj. Carlton to take those lands. I do not want them.” “ But,” 
he said, “you must take them.” 

I gave him my check, and that was the beginning of my purchase 
of lands in Pemiscot County. I afterwards bought lands at $1.25. 
I afterwards bought lands at $1.50. I bought all I was able to buy 
at $1.50 an acre. Then the levee was constructed, and after the 
levee was constructed, and it was possible for the railroads to enter 
that territory as they have done, I found that my purse was very 
shallow, and for what I had to buy I had to pay $5, $7, and $16.50 
an acre. To-day those lands, sir, without having had one iota of 
labor expended upon them, but having had taken from them the 
virgin forest, are to-day worth from $30 to $35 an acre; and im¬ 
proved lands in that county, the alluvial lands lying back of this levee 
system, you can not buy to-day for less than $75 to $125 an acre. 
They are readily passed for $125 an acre. Lands through which this 
Little River drainage district is constructed, which sold at that time 
for less than $5 an acre, I know of my own knowledge, have been sold 
on the market for $125. 

The Chairman. That appreciation you trace largely to the levee 
system? 

Mr. Oliver. To the levee system, and this is a corollary of it. We 
can not reclaim those lands unless you keep the w T aters from 24 States 
off of us. [Applause.] We will take care of our own water, we will 
take care of Missouri’s water and all the waters that fall on our terri¬ 
tory, and not ask you a penny. 

Mr. Ham. In the event the Government should take charge of this 
levee, what, then, do you think would be the value of this land? 

Mr. Oliver. That, sir, would be a prophecy. I would not under¬ 
take to say. I do not know what they would be worth. I do know 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 313 

that those alluvial lands are to-day producing five crops of hay an¬ 
nually, and T do not know what they will do in cotton. I do know 
that the statistics gathered in the census of 1880 showed this fact— 
and I refer you to it as my authority—that in the little county of 
Pemiscot in 1.880 the greatest yield per acre for any acre of American 
soil was grown on that overflowed territory. I know that the census 
showed two years ago that Pemiscot County and the county lying 
back of it furnished more cotton to the world than the States of 
Virginia and Maryland combined. I do know that five counties in 
Missouri furnished almost one-twentieth of the corn crop of last year. 

I do not know what those lands would be worth, my friend, but I 
do know this, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen: I do know that the land- 
owners of that country do not ask the National Government for one 
penny to help them reclaim those lands. All we want the National 
Government to do is to take care of its own river and keep it off of 
us. We want that, because we can not handle it; you will not allow 
us to divert it; you will not allow us to cut off a bend to shorten it; 
and we are therefore at the mercy of the National Government in 
the control and management of that river. That is what we are here 
for. That is what we are asking this committee and this Congress 
to do. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. The thought that occurred to me 
while you were talking about the tremendous increase in the value 
of the lands was whether their increase in value could not take care of 
that expense. 

Mr. Oliver. Well, sir; I have shown you that that land in Pemi¬ 
scot County has a tax upon it now of 15 per cent. In addition to that 
is this levee tax of $580,362. This measure, Mr. Chairman, is to take 
care of your river, not ours. It is to take care of and keep your wild 
animal off of our ranch. We are asking you to take care of the 
waters that we have no concern in the holding of. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. You spoke of irrigation in the 
West. What would you think of this plan: Let the Government 
reclaim this land and then take charge of it, purchase it as it does 
in the West, reclaim it, and then sell it and let the money for the in¬ 
creased valuation go back into the National Treasury. 

Mr. Oliver. Well, I would not undertake to say. I have not 
given any serious thought to that. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. Why, if the Government furnishes 
the money to give this increase- 

Mr. Oliver. The Government has not furnished the money. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. I say, if it should. 

Mr. Oliver. No, sir; we are asking the Government to take care 
of its own water, not to destroy us; not to devastate our country and 
scatter our people as it has been doing. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. I do not think the Government 
has been running the Mississippi River. 

Mr. Oliver. It is a governmental water. 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. It ought to do it, 

Mr. Oliver. All that we are asking you to do is just simply to do 

your duty. .... . . 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. I make this suggestion, that we 
are not asking the Federal Government to add to the value of the 


314 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


lands in these deltas; we are asking the Federal Government to cease 
subtracting from them. 

Mr. Oliver. Exactly. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. Yes; but you are pointing out this 
system of irrigation in the West. While the Government irrigates 
that land in the West, it owns the land and sells the land again. 

Mr. Oliver. And sells the waters to the private individuals—very 
generously. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. They sell it at cost, or aim to. 

Mr. Oliver. As I said, anything that will advance this matter I am 
in favor of. Anything that Congress has cause to do that will ad¬ 
vance the power and progress and prosperity of our people I will 
hold up my hand and shout for. That is my attitude. I have no op¬ 
position to the development of any one section. 

Mr. Russell. The gentleman from Washington wants to know why 
the State should not handle this matter, if it would add so much to 
the value of its land. I would like to ask if you do not understand 
it to be a fact that for the levees that have been built the owners of 
the property have had to pay about $6 for every dollar that the 
Government paid. 

Mr. Oliver. More than that, Mr. Russell. The Government has, in 
Scott County and Mississippi County, through the kindness and 
generosity of the Mississippi River Commission, to prevent the com¬ 
plete destruction of the lower part of the valley, assisted in repair¬ 
ing the levees that were constructed there by the landowners. And, 
as Mr. Russell has said, for every dollar that the Government has put 
into that levee the landowner has put in more than $6. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. But in other parts of the country 
they put it all in. This is the only place where they have received any 
assistance at all. 

Mr. Oliver. Other places where the waters do not originate within 
the State? 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. Oh, I suppose there are places of 
that kind; along the Ohio River, for instance. 

Mr. Oliver. The Ohio, of course, is a part of the Mississippi Val¬ 
ley. And, if I remember correctly, the Mississippi River has been 
very greatly benefited and greatly protected by the appropriations 
made by Congress. I am not positive about that, and I can not, 
therefore, speak authoritatively. You gentlemen will know, and I 
do not. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. The thing I am trying to ascer¬ 
tain is exactly what your proposition is. 

Mr. Oliver. Our proposition briefly is this. We regard the con¬ 
trol of that river as a national problem. We believe, Mr. Chairman 
and gentlemen of the committee, that for half a century you have 
been trying to ascertain how to control and solve that problem. We 
understood, from what Gen. Catchings said this morning, that for 
50 years you have recognized this as a national problem, and you 
have been trying to get data and information which would enable a 
committee of Congress to intelligently solve that problem. Now, we 
contend that the Mississippi River Commission has given you that 
information. And, like Gen, Catchings, we stand here and are ready 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 315 

to indorse whatever plan Col. Townsend and his associates upon that 
commission may recommend as the solution of this problem. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. I am not referring to the engi¬ 
neering features. I am referring to the financial part of it. Is it 
your proposition that the Government should pay the expense of con¬ 
structing these levees, and that the local communities—the States and 
other local communities—shall bear no part of it? 

Mr. Oliver. I would say this, sir, that the States have largely con¬ 
structed these levees. I want the National Government to take those 
levees, to unify them, put them under the management of the Missis¬ 
sippi River Commission, a commission that can handle them and 
work them out in an intelligent and rational way. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. Your proposition is for the Gov¬ 
ernment to finish constructing these levees and take them over and 
bear the expense of maintaining them? 

Mr. Oliver. Yes, sir; that is my proposition, exactly. 

Mr. Murray of Massachusetts. Does not section 3 of this bill pro¬ 
vide for contribution by local levee districts? 

Mr. Oliver. Yes, sir; it does provide that. But he is asking me 
what my position is. I feel it is the duty of the Government to take 
care of the property of its citizens residing in that territory, as much 
so as it is to take care of the property adjacent to any port in this 
country. 

Mr. Murray of Massachusetts. You are in favor of the Humphreys 
bill? 

Mr. Oliver. Yes, sir; I am in favor of the Humphreys bill. 

Mr. Murray. And its provision for contribution? 

Mr. Oliver. That is a part of that bill, and whatever the Board of 
Engineers ask for we stand ready to indorse. [Applause.] 

Mr. Murray of Massachusetts. But you are in favor of contribu¬ 
tions by local levee districts? 

Mr. Oliver. I am, if that bill provides for it. I am for that bill, 
whatever it provides for, you understand. [Laughter.] I am like 
Gen. Wright; I do not care how it is done. If that bill asks that the 
States or the local districts that have built these banks of earth are 
still to assist in the maintenance of them, I am for it. 

Mr. Murray of Massachusetts. That is, of course, you feel the 
same way toward Mr. Humphreys as we do? 

Mr. Oliver. I feel that Mr. Humphreys and his confrere have 
worked out an intelligent and righteous solution of the problem be¬ 
tween the Government and its citizens. [Applause.] I believe the 
Board of Engineers, the agency of this great Government, is not par¬ 
tial and will do exact and equal justice to that section of the State 
as well as to another. That is my position. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. I call your attention to the fact 
that the engineers do not know anything about how any part of this 
money is to be paid. 

Mr. Taylor. Are your investments in that property about the 
average of other investors in that property ? 

Mr. Oliver. Well, I do not know; I could not say, sir. I am not 
a heavy investor. I merely wanted to give you a concrete and specific 
illustration. 


316 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

Mr. Taylor. I wanted to know whether it was a fair average. 

Mr. Oliver. I should say that perhaps the lands could be bought 
and were bought for about those figures, as the development of the 
country and the development of the lands went on. I would say 
that, perhaps, would be about a fair statement of the proposition. 

Mr. Taylor. How long ago was it that you made that purchase? 

Mr. Oliver. That was in 1893 that I made the first purchase. 

Mr. Taylor. That was about 19 or 20 years ago? 

Mr. Oliver. Yes, sir. Now, gentlemen, a few words more and I 
am through. 

The importance and magnitude of this great national work, the 
control of the Mississippi River, when considered in dollars and 
acres, may be more readily appreciated and realized when we recall 
that the total acreage of swamp and overflowed lands that the Na¬ 
tional Government gave to the several States, by act of Congress 
approved September 28, 1850, was 74,000,000 acres. 

England has an area of 50,890 square miles, Belgium has an area 
of 11,317 square miles, and Holland has an area of 12,648 square 
miles. These three nations have a combined area of 74,855 square 
miles. The same nations have a population of 74,558,153. 

Now, when we think of this vast population on an area of 74,855 
square miles, arid recall that the National Government gave to the 
several States in this Union 115,468 square miles, we perhaps can get 
some idea of what these swamp and overflowed lands mean—what 
they are worth to the Nation and the duty that the Federal Govern¬ 
ment owes to the several States in preventing the Government’s waters 
from further despoiling and ruining them. 

Now, I do not want you to think that I am insisting that there 
are 115,000 square miles in this delta. There are about 29,000 square 
miles in this delta, or 20,000,000 acres, while the National Govern¬ 
ment gave to other States not affected by this great stream 115,000 
square miles, or 74,000,000 acres. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. There are 20,000,000 acres in the 
delta that are affected? 

Mr. Oliver. Yes, sir. 

To my mind it is unthinkable to believe that the people of this 
great valley will much longer permit the present condition of affairs 
to exist. 

Little Holland has successfully fought back the waters of the sea 
and made for herself and her people a name that will stand out in 
history for all ages. The citizenship of the Mississippi Valley and 
its tributaries are as courageous, intelligent, and as industrious as 
those of Holland. 

The incentive and certainty of pecuniary reward is far greater in 
our case than it was in Holland’s. All we need is a united public 
sentiment, and to let the world know what we have, what we need, 
and what we demand—flood protection. With our land protected 
from the flood waters of the Mississippi and its tributaries we can 
and will grow cotton and grain and meat enough to clothe and feed 
the world. The control of the flood waters of the Mississippi River 
is no longer a local question for the States. It is national in its 
scope and importance, and it is the duty of Congress to so treat it. 
[Applause.] 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 317 

Statement of Hon. E. A. McCulloch, Chief Justice of the 
Supreme Court of Arkansas, Little Rock, Ark. 

Mr. McCulloch. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, 
probably it is well I have stated to you my profession, because doubt¬ 
less you will learn before I get through my brief remarks that I am 
neither a farmer nor an engineer. I have no apologies or explana¬ 
tions to make for my appearance here, as doubtless my infirmity in 
presenting the questions under consideration will be apparent before 
I get through, but I have only to say that I come mainly to express 
the interest of our people, without any professed ability to enlighten 
you upon the technical subjects which it becomes necessary for you 
to investigate. 

Gentlemen of the committee, there has been so much said before 
you to-day that I feel that little is left to be said, and I shall there¬ 
fore confine myself, as I said, largely to a brief expression of the 
interest that our people have in this project, to make you feel that it 
is the wish of the people of Arkansas that assistance be given, and 
their abiding conviction that it is the duty of the American people 
at large to give this assistance in the great work which they are prose¬ 
cuting for themselves to extricate themselves from a situation which 
is not imposed by local conditions but arises from causes they are 
unable to control. I say I shall confine myself briefly to that line 
of thought and such few observations as may occur to me and have 
arisen in my mind during the discussion here to-day. The subject 
has been so ably treated from many standpoints by the distinguished 
speakers who have preceded me that little is left to be said. 

But there is one thought that has occurred to me above all others 
to express by way of suggestion, after listening to the discussion 
to-day, and that is to warn the committee or to remind them that in 
the consideration of the subject there are two distinct questions to be 
considered and which there seems to be some disposition to confuse. 
One is the question of power, and the other is the question of policy. 

The two questions may under some circumstances be considered to¬ 
gether, but the question of power may turn on subjects that are en¬ 
tirely technical and which lead to subtle refinements that the average 
layman can not comprehend, and those things ought not to be consid¬ 
ered in determining the question of policy. Now, when we consider 
the question from a legal standpoint, a constitutional standpoint, we 
find, as we do in all other questions of this kind, that it runs into nice 
refinements. It appears when dealing with a direct question of 
power,that we are straining the law, and we are at liberty to consider 
those legal refinements in determining the power of Congress over 
this subject. But technicalities are out of place in a discussion of 
public policy, and when you approach the other field, the field of 
policy, many questions enter into it that have nothing to do with the 
legal question of power. 

Now, we know—those who have considered the question of the 
exercise of power by the General Government—that those powers are 
given in general terms, and that it was beyond the conception of the 
framers of the Constitution what various applications should arise. 
And I desire to remind you that these technical questions of 
limitations upon the exercise of power by the General Government 
have at all stages arisen. Things we look back upon now as well 

30573°—H. Rep. 300, 63-2, pt 2-21 


318 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

within the power of the General Government have been fought out 
step by step. Take the question we have to-day of the exercise by 
Congress of the power under that clause of the Constitution that 
gives it control of interstate commerce. We know that many things 
have been done under that clause which could only be put upon 
rather strained and technical grounds, where the real controlling 
element that induced the General Government to enter upon it was 
not the question of its being well within the power of Congress, but 
because of a general policy which demanded it. 

So I say the committee is justified, if it becomes necessary to 
determine the question of power upon technical grounds. When 
you enter upon the field of policy you find much more solid ground. 

Let me illustrate by mentioning the advances that have been 
made under this clause of the Constitution. Take the passage, first, 
of the safety-appliance act. It is a rather technical construction of 
the Constitution that gives that power. We look upon it now as 
clearly within that power, and it is, and we all agree that the safety- 
appliance act and the employer’s liability act are absolutely necessary 
in the aid of interstate commerce. I will ask you what prompted 
those enactments? It was not the direct regulation of commerce 
but it was upon that much broader ground of humanitarianism, 
the protection of human life, and you brought it technically within 
the powers of Congress. You did it to protect human life. You 
seized upon the power and the right to do it by virtue of the fact that 
you had a right to enact legislation in regulation and aid of inter¬ 
state commerce, but you adopted the policy from entirely different 
considerations. 

Now, I ask that these two question be not confused, because it 
seems to me to belittle the broader questions of policy and of justice 
to the people of this locality if we are understood as making a strained 
argument to sustain the power of Congress. Gen. Catchings, it seems 
to me, has very clearly shown that this power exists and that it has 
been repeatedly exercised. We lodge it squarely upon the proposi¬ 
tion of regulation of interstate commerce. In the control of one of 
the chief arteries of commerce in this whole Nation, it is a protection 
to the railroads, which is clearly in aid of interstate commerce. 
Those things have been so clearly demonstrated that there is little 
room left for argument along that line. 

What I endeavor to emphasize is that if our arguments in support 
of the power of Congress to make appropriations for this purpose 
appear strained and somewhat technical, we leave that narrow field 
when we come to deal with the question of the policy of the Govern¬ 
ment in making the appropriation we are asking for, and there we 
rest our case upon the broad foundation of duty and of justice. In 
other words, though we may find only a technical legal basis for the 
exercise of this power in the indirect regulation of commerce among 
the States by protecting navigation along the Mississippi River, we 
justify the policy by resort to other considerations which remove it 
to the broader domain of national duty. We insist that Congress 
possesses the power, under the commerce clause of the Constitution, 
to appropriate money for building and maintaining levees along the 
Mississippi River and has exercised that power for a long time, and 
that it is a national problem which calls for aid from the General 
Government in its solution. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 319 

But, gentlemen of the committee, does it not seem to be a rather 
late day to be raising the technical question of the power of Congress 
to legislate for the benefit of levees? Has not Congress done it for 
the last 30 or 40 years? And is not that a legislative determination 
of that question ? 

The Chairman. I will say, Judge, that the Committee on Rivers 
and Harbors has not thought that there was any serious constitu¬ 
tional objection to the construction of levees, at least in the aid of 
navigation. We may go so far after a while that we shall have to 
hunt for some other clause in the Constitution than the commerce 
clause, but up to the present time we have not got that far. 

Mr. McCulloch. I was just drawing my remarks on that subject 
to a close, and I welcome that suggestion, because it renders fur¬ 
ther argument on that point unnecessary. It is not contended that 
with respect to a levee project alone Congress has the right to act 
simply for the sake of protecting lands but to incidentally protect 
navigation, and the question has been foreclosed by the repeated 
action of Congress in making appropriations for that purpose. 

The Chairman. The more serious question with us is one of policy; 
that is, how far we ought to go—how far we can go at this time. 

Mr. McCulloch. That is purely a question of policy. When the 
Government enters into that field it enters for all purposes, and it 
is then a matter of policy, involving the questions of justice and 
necessity, and when you answer those questions you solve the diffi¬ 
culties of the relative equities in each proposition when presented. 
I say, then, if you concede this power to enter upon the levee project 
as incidental to the protection of navigation, when you once take hold 
of it you do it for the purpose of adjusting the whole equities of the 
situation. You have the pow T er, you are unlimited in the amount of 
the appropriations. Therefore, it is your province in the exercise of 
that power to determine how much you will appropriate and upon 
what terms. 

The Chairman. Yes; those are the serious questions. 

Mr. McCulloch. I conceive that is the only question. But I will 
say that, w T hile there are many of the details to be settled by this 
committee, it is a question that on the whole settles itself. More diffi¬ 
cult problems in adjusting other questions arise, and everybody knows 
that this committee has been and always will be courageous enough 
and just enough to meet them just as they arise. 

Mr. Taylor. Judge, do you consider this proposition as entirely 
unique and alone? 

Mr. McCulloch. Not at all, sir. 

Mr. Taylor. What other problems are there? 

Mr. McCulloch. T think this is neither a new proposition nor a 
unique one. And I say it is not a new proposition, because $27,000,000 
has already been appropriated by the Congress for the purpose of 
aiding the construction of levees. It is not any more unique than 
any other question which is essentially fundamental and based upon 
plain principles of equity and of justice. 

Mr. Taylor. Can you give a parallel case in which the Government 
has gone into the business of making improvements like this, where 
the expenses have been shared with the States? 

Mr. McCulloch. I think it is unnecessary when the Government 
has already gone into this business and has already spent $27,000,000. 


320 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


Mr. Taylor. Up to this time it has spent it purely upon the idea 
of navigation. 

Mr. McCulloch. And the remainder of the sum—all we are ask- 
ing you to spend now is upon the technical theory that it is to protect 
navigation. 

Now, I want to call you back to the thought I was trying to im¬ 
press, that when you leave the question of power and come to the 
question of policy you do not need any precedent; you proceed upon 
broad principles of equity and justice. 

Mr. Taylor. I quite agree with you as to the question of power. 

Mr. McCulloch. There are so many different things that enter 
into this question. Of course, I can not at present cite an instance 
where the Government has entered into partnership with a State. 
My present thought is directed entirely to the justice of this proposi¬ 
tion, unaffected by any other parallel case, if any exist. 

Mr. Taylor. This bill, as you well understand, requires that the 
States contribute their proportionate share. 

Mr. McCulloch. I understand that. This scheme has been com¬ 
pletely worked out, and it is built along lines of justice that ought 
to satisfy everybody. 

Mr. Taylor. Have you ever made any estimate of what the acreage 
was in the 20,000 square miles that would be improved? 

Mr. McCulloch. No, sir; I am not prepared to give you any 
figures on that. I can do so upon the lands in Arkansas. 

Mr. Percy. There are 16,000,000 acres out of 20,000,000 acres sus¬ 
ceptible of cultivation if protected by levees. 

Mr. McCulloch. From a personal observation of the lands in Ark¬ 
ansas, I would say that a very large per cent of the 4,000 acres in 
Arkansas affected by the overflow—probably 85 or 90 per cent of it— 
is susceptible of cultivation. There is 28 per cent of it now under 
cultivation. 

Now, when you pass to the question of the exercise of this power 
you enter upon a broad field and you are permitted to take into con¬ 
sideration a great many matters. The first consideration, and the 
-one that, has been urged principally by the speakers already, is 
the fact that this is not a local project; that we are not responsible 
for it; that 41 per cent of the territory of the United States furnish 
the water that flows through this great waterway. 

That vast territory contributes to our burden and originates the 
efficient cause of our trouble, for the waters gathered from that great 
source overtax the capacity of the river as a draining agency and 
inundate our lands. This undoubtedly makes the problem a national 
one and imposes an obligation on the General Government to at least 
share the burden of taking care of it. 

Mr. Taylor. Has it ever occurred to you to think that that has been 
the condition ever since this part of the country has developed? 

Mr. McCulloch. That has always been the condition, of course. 
But government is made up of mutual concessions, interdependent, 
and we should try, as far as the burdens are common ones, to share 
them in common. We are only asking the people at large to share 
in the proportion in which they are interested. 

Mr. Taylor. That is the equity that I want to bring out. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 321 

Mr. McCulloch. And I say there are other considerations that 
make it a national problem, besides the physical fact that the water 
comes from a large territory. 

a! 1 ' fr 4YL0R ' Individuall J, 1 recognize it is a national project. 

Mr. McCulloch. Now, if we look at the map, we may grasp the 
fact that there is no other one thing that is equal to the Mississippi 
Kiver as a vehicle of commerce, and that the greatest cities in Amer¬ 
ica, outside of New York, are affected by it directly. St. Louis,, 
Chicago, St. Paul, and Minneapolis are directly interested, not to- 
mention the cities situated in or near the overflow country. It is not 
a local matter; they are directly interested in it as a transportation 
problem. When you consider the equities of this situation, you find 
they are almost without limit. 

Mr. Taylor. You think the cost of the whole matter is a fair mat¬ 
ter for consideration ? 

Mr. McCulloch. The magnitude of it, you mean ? 

Mr Taylor. Yes; the cost of it. 

Mr. McCulloch. I think that is an element for consideration when 
you are passing upon the equities of the case, which you have a right 
to do. You determine the magnitude of it. I am not insisting that 
because it is too big a project for the people of the locality themselves 
to handle that that affords any ground for the General Government to 
take charge of it. Understand me on that. We are planting ourselves 
squarely on the proposition of the power to do this thing, and that 
there are reasons which make this a problem national in its character 
and in its influence. If we have failed to convince you of that, then 
we have no case. 

Mr. Taylor. I would like to ask you, Mr. McCulloch, whether you 
do not think the cost of this project is a proper subject of inquiry 
before this committee ? 

Mr. McCulloch. Why, certainly it is. The cost is of primary 
importance, more so than most inquiries to which the activities of 
this committee are directed. It is a branch of the work of the General 
Government. It is a matter of great magnitude. I do not consider 
that the cost is by any means prohibitive. The magnitude and cost of 
the project affords no reason for rejecting it if it is justified by the 
results to be attained. 

'Mr. Taylor. I was going to ask you a moment ago this: Do you 
think, on considering the question, it is one that ought to be con¬ 
sidered and handled by the State? In other words, do you not think,, 
as a matter of equity and justice, if there is an undertaking of this 
kind, that it would be better to have it handled by the Government? 
I think the Government should undertake it. It has always seemed 
to be that the only time the Government is justified in undertaking 
these propositions is when private parties or the States or local 
authorities can not handle them. 

Mr. McCulloch. I am sure I can not agree with you on that, be¬ 
cause I think there are obligations resting upon the General Govern¬ 
ment that can not be escaped by forcing those obligations even upon 
a willing people. I think the merits of this proposition ought to be 
carefully considered. As I will show you in a moment, the burdens of 
our people are very great. 


322 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


Mr. Taylor. I do not think you understand me. Is that not the 
only thing to be considered—that the Government alone can properly 
handle this? 

Mr. McCulloch. Yes; I think so. It is one of the questions that 
can be and ought to be considered. Certainly the question of adjust¬ 
ing these burdens between the General Government should be consid¬ 
ered, especially when we call attention to the fact as to what we have 
already assumed and what we propose to assume hereafter, which is 
the large end of the burden. The enormous sum asked for here does 
not run it out to a point where the General Government will be con¬ 
tributing more than the local government. We have other questions 
that ought to be considered—the question of drainage and the neces¬ 
sity for it caused to some extent by the overflow—those shallow 
swales, lakes, and lowlands covered with water that should be drained 
and the lands made tillable, and these conditions have been brought 
about to some extent by the overflows. 

The Chairman. Do you not think that the local communities, if the 
value of the property that is reclaimed is very greatly enhanced, 
should bear a certain portion of the expense ? 

Mr. McCulloch. I think so. That is why I approve this bill, 
because I think it recognizes that burdens rest upon the people, but 
the figures will demonstrate that we have already spent two and a 
half dollars for every one dollar that the Government has spent, 
and we propose now that that be equalized under this bill. 

The Chairman. Of course, it is hard to say how much each should 
expend. Assuming that the Government ought to pay something— 
and we have assumed that, because for two or three decades we have 
been appropriating money for levees—how much should the Govern¬ 
ment furnish to do exact justice in the matter? We have been doing 
in a haphazard way about one-third of this ivork already during all 
the years. Now, this bill says two-thirds. 

Mr. McCulloch. Just a moment ago I made some figures. I un¬ 
derstand this is accurate, that the States have, through the various 
agencies in the levee districts, spent $67,000,000. Under the present 
bill they will be required to spend $15,000,000. That is one-third of 
the $45,000,000 which under this bill is to be devoted to levee work. 
That makes $82,000,000 that under the terms of this bill the States 
must spend. They have already spent sixty-seven millions of it and 
must spend fifteen millions more. The Government has spent 
twenty-seven millions, and the forty-five millions will make seventy- 
two millions that the Government will spend. That leaves out of 
account an immense amount of money that has been spent, and will 
necessarily spend for drainage, in which, of course, we are not asking 
the Government to share. That is reclamation, and I want to em¬ 
phasize the fact that we are not asking for that, the reclamation of 
our lands. What we are asking for is protection. Reclamation is a 
different proposition. 

The Chairman. But the principle there is about the same. 

Mr. McCulloch. No; I believe there is a broad difference. I may 
be wrong about it, but I believe there is a broad difference. 

Reclamation means, from a standpoint of economics, the process of 
reclaiming that which has lost its value or utility, while protection 
implies a state of immunity from outside dangers. We want aid in 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 323 

protecting our lands from recurring inundation by waters flowing 
to our borders from other territory; not reclamation from conditions 
which exist by reason of the character of the lands in that locality. 
Local drainage is reclamation; but levee construction is protection. 

The Chairman. Possibly so, but that would not cut any figure 
in the discussion. 

Mr. McCulloch. But I was laying emphasis on the fact that we 
are not asking the Government to take our property and make some¬ 
thing out of nothing, but we are asking it to protect us from out¬ 
side influences that are detrimental to the lands that we propose to 
make something out of. These are not waste lands. These are the 
most fertile lands in the world. There are the greatest possibilities 
there. We raise the finest grade of cotton. It can not be raised any¬ 
where else, and never has been raised anywhere else. The whole 
world is interested in the grade of cotton we raise in that locality. 
A large percentage of the land is in cultivation, and these lands 
are peopled with intelligent people who are trying to work out their 
destinies even under the adverse conditions that exist there. We are 
not asking that you make something out of this land, but give us the 
opportunity to make something out of it, and to that extent the Gov¬ 
ernment has a duty to perform. 

Mr. Taylor. In asking my question some time ago I was desirous 
of ascertaining from you whether you considered the matter of con¬ 
tribution on the part of the local interests. In section 3 of this bill 
one-third is stated, and I wanted to know whether you had given that 
matter consideration yourself, and what you thought would be an 
equitable adjustment of that proposition. 

Mr. McCulloch. I think my figures answer that question. I 
think what the localities have to give under this bill is their full 
proportion, and in considering the equities of the question and in 
determining how much the States should pay, I think it is well for 
the General Government to consider the fact that we have these 
other burdens to bear—the question of maintenance that is upon us, 
that is obligatory upon us. When you build these levees we must 
maintain them. It is not for me to say that the Government will not 
be asked to assist us some hereafter in the way of maintenance, but 
that is a burden that will always be with the property owners of that 
district. 

Mr. Taylor. I understood you were asking the Government to 
maintain these levees and take them over. 

Mr. McCulloch. No, sir. We recognize the fact that we have a 
perpetual burden upon us there in assisting in the maintenance of 
these levees. This bill provides for a specific appropriation for five 
years, and our conception—at least my conception—of that is that, 
from a practical standpoint, it is a settlement of the levee proposition, 
but that does not mean there will not have to be more money spent. 
The Government may be asked after that to contribute something to 
the maintenance, but this bill, as we contend, practically settles the 
levee project, though it does not end it, and that suggests to my mind 
an answer to the question propounded by the chairman this morn- 
ino- that arose over the question of the cost of revetment. It is not our 
contention that an appropriation of $60,000,000 settles for all time the 
question of the control of the Mississippi River. There is no danger 


324 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


of this committee being abolished for want of something to do with 
reference to the Mississippi River. The levee problem and the pro¬ 
tection of our land is a problem that must be solved, and we say for 
all practical purposes this bill, with its $60,000,000, will furnish us 
sufficient protection, and the only question hereafter will be the one 
of maintenance. 

I don’t think the present issue should be confused by the contro¬ 
versy concerning the ultimate cost of revetment, for that is entirely 
a question of direct control of navigation, which the committee should 
consider entirely apart from the levee question. The opinion of our 
engineers, and, I believe, too, of the Government engineers, is that 
only a small amount of revetment, comparatively speaking, will be 
essential to the protection of levees. Doubtless the $15,000,000 pro¬ 
vided in this bill is estimated to be sufficient. Surely it will not be 
necessary to so protect the banks of the river all the way from Cairo 
to New Orleans, as has been suggested. 

Mr. Powers. Suppose this bill is passed and these levees are con¬ 
structed by the Government; to what extent will that enhance the 
value of the land in the delta? 

Mr. McCulloch. Well, sir, I think Mr. Oliver has answered that 
question as well as I can. It is a matter of speculation. I lived in 
that country for 20 years. I went to Arkansas 30 years ago, and it is 
marvelous the improvements that have been made there and the ad¬ 
vancement in valuation of the land during that time, and that was not 
simply based upon levee protection or any assurance of it, but the 
mere hope that we would get it. Lands that were worth practically 
nothing there 20 or 30 years ago are valuable now, and in the upper 
part of our State, in Mississippi County, speaking in round numbers, 
the open farm lands, are to-day worth $100 an acre. 

The Chairman. Do any of these lands belong to the State now? 

Mr. McCulloch. A very small proportion. 

Mr. Powers. Do you think it would increase the value of the delta 
land 50 per cent if this bill should become a law and if these people 
were assured that the Government proposed to take care of the situa¬ 
tion? 

Mr. McCulloch. I have no doubt the increase would be that much. 

Mr. Kennedy. That increase 'would not come from the fact of pro¬ 
tection alone, but that protection gives those people an opportunity to 
make those lands valuable, provided they are not subject to over¬ 
flow? 

Mr. McCulloch. Certainly. I suppose that is implied in the ques¬ 
tion. It is merely the protection. But it does not stop merely with 
the building of the levee. There is something else to be done. It 
costs $20 or more an acre to clear those lands and put them in culti¬ 
vation. 

Mr. Powers. Suppose the responsibility w T as up to the people to 
develop the lands ? 

Mr. McCulloch. That carries out the idea I tried to express awhile 
ago, that that is a protection and not a reclamation of something 
that does not exist now. 

Mr. Powers. I was trying to get at a basis whereby we could ascer¬ 
tain to what extent the people would be benefited, and thereby draw 
some conclusion as to what proportion they ought to contribute to 
the maintenance. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 325 

Mr. McCulloch. I think that is a fair inquiry, and I think it is 
an inquiry that might well be made, and I think it has been consid¬ 
ered in this bill and fairly treated in the bill. What we have already 
paid should be considered and that which we are required to pay by 
the terms of this bill. What we are contributing is largely in excess 
of the amount this Government is asked to give. 

The Chairman. Do you mean to say that you approve of the plan 
of one-third to be paid by the local interests and two-thirds by the 
General Government? 

Mr. McCulloch. Yes. I am accepting the judgment of those in 
whom I have the utmost confidence, who have studied this question 
more than I have, but certainly it seems fair when you consider what 
has already been done. 

The Chairman. Can you give any reasons, or is it only an arbi¬ 
trary conclusion to which you have arrived that we ought to pay two 
thirds? 

Mr. McCulloch. No, sir. 

The Chairman. You have no way, based on reasoning or facts, of 
drawing an exact line between. 

Mr. McCulloch. No, sir; it is more or less arbitrary. 

The Chairman. A State on the one side and the National Gov¬ 
ernment on the other? 

Mr. McCulloch. Yes, sir. It is an arbitrary distribution of the 
burdens which it is the duty of this committee to apportion. But 
when you consider the figures here you can not give any reason why 
that is not a fair distribution. I do not think the committee ought 
to take into consideration what somebody else may be asking for 
which would be improving private property. We want to take it out 
of that field, and if we have not done so we must abandon the project, 
and so I have nothing further to say about that if we can not main¬ 
tain our proposition that it is a national problem. But that has been 
successfully established, not only by the arguments made before this 
committee, but by the universal opinion of the American people. 
The Democratic national convention said it was a national problem 
and referred to the levees specifically. The Republican national con¬ 
vention very properly spoke of the Mississippi River as the national 
ditch, as the drainage ditch of the Nation. The Progressive Party 
in equally apt terms so characterized it and expressed the abiding 
conviction of the American people that this was a project in which 
the whole Nation was interested, and it seems to me if we are going 
to listen to the voice of the people on this that this question ought to 
be treated as settled. We have the highest authority for our action 
and for what we ask from you. We bring to you the voice of the 
people, which says that this is a part of the duty of this Congress. 
We bring to you the reports of the engineers, which demonstrate that 
the levee project is the one to be adopted. 

Now, gentlemen of the committee, I do not know that I can add 
anything further, but I just want to say a word or two about local 
conditions. I do not want it understood for a moment that the people 
of Arkansas are mendicants. We have an intelligent, independent, 
happy people in Arkansas, self-reliant and progressive. We have 
the best country, I believe, in the Avorld, favored by climate and by 
an equal rainfall that makes our crops almost certain. We do not 


326 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


have disasters in Arkansas. Our crops are extremely diversified. 
We have great stretches of land devoted to fruits. I have in mind 
a county where a full apple crop is worth nearly $2,000,000 to the peo¬ 
ple of that county. We have wide, great stretches of land where rice 
and corn and other grain are cultivated. It is but a small proportion 
of the State that is asking for this help, but they need it. They feel 
they have a right to ask for it. It is not a wild waste, but, as I said 
a moment ago, a rich land that is inhabited by good people, intelli¬ 
gent people, who are making the best struggle they can under adverse 
conditions, and they have accomplished wonders. I will not take up 
your time by reading statistics, but the taxable valuation of properties 
inside of this district, this overflow district, has improved tenfold 
in the last 30 years, merely upon the hope of protection, merely in re¬ 
liance upon their efforts and such help as they could get from the 
Government, and upon this expectation they have increased in value 
there more than tenfold. Gentlemen, I feel that in asking this in 
the name of these people I am not asking too much. They are doing 
their own part toward this work. I was just told by a gentleman 
here representing one of the levee districts that they now carry a tax 
of 4-J per cent on the valuation for levee purposes alone, more than 
a dollar an acre, they claim. In the levee district of which I have 
most knowledge they are paying 20 cents an acre, and on down the 
line they are paying every year and contributing their part. They 
have assumed a great bonded indebtedness, which means for genera¬ 
tions to come there will have to be a tax levied for the purpose of 
paying these bonds. 

The St. Francis Basin alone has a population of 101,000, and there 
are 519,437 acres of land in cultivation, of the actual value of $27,- 
635,000. There are 1,118,705 acres of unimproved land, of the esti¬ 
mated present value of $31,273,000. The value of all property in 
that district now amounts to $87,109,000. There are 595 miles of 
railroad, valued at $5,950,000. 

So, in conclusion, gentlemen,; let me insist that we not only have 
the equities of the situation in our behalf, we have the question of 
the power settled by the courts and by repeated adjudications and 
by Congress itself. We have the precedent for this sort of an ap¬ 
propriation, and we present to you a proposition which, from the 
standpoint of economics, the standpoint of public policy, and the 
standpoint of equity and justice is absolutely unassailable. 

Statement of Mr. William P. Ross. 

Mr. Ross. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I speak 
to you as chairman of a subcommittee appointed last Saturday at a 
State-wide convention held in New Orleans under the auspices of the 
New Orleans Board of Trade, where there were represented ac¬ 
credited .delegates from the towns and cities of 26 of our parishes, 
as they call our counties in Louisiana, from the eight levee boards 
in Louisiana, from six commercial exchanges of New Orleans, and 
from the board of State engineers, called for the purpose of indors¬ 
ing the Ransdell-Humphrey bill. This meeting resulted in resolu¬ 
tions which I am instructed to read to you and make a few remarks 
as to the reason why they were adopted. 


327 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

R rTTl™ l0 Tm^ 0I T.T, AT THE I ^ tJIS,ANA Convention of Representatives of 
’ CoM ^ ERCIAL Organizations, Levee Boards, Police Juries, 

ORTr\N« IE R S 0F THE rr TATE 0F Louistana Held at tiie Rooms of the New 
November 2“ 1913 F ’ LlMITED > IN THE ClTY 0E New Orleans, La., 

"'I 1 ';::- platfoirns adopted last year by the national conventions of the 
Deniocrat'c, Republican, and Progressive Parties, each and all distinctly and 
definitely recognize that the control of the Mississippi River is a national 
problem and a national obligation which should not and could not be under- 
tahen and solved by the States upon the borders of the river unaided; and 
Whereas it is essential, m order to maintain navigable channels in the Missis¬ 
sippi River, that the stream be held within its banks; and 
W hereas the Mississippi River Commission, after careful surveys and years of 
experience, determined many years ago that levees along the banks of the 
Mississippi River of dimensions which they specified and properly revetted 
would accomplish this; and 

W hereas experience since they reached this decision has demonstrated that if 
the levees had been built to the dimensions the commission specified, the floods 
of 1 ecent years, which have caused serious loss of life, destruction of property, 
and visited great hardship upon thousands of the people of the lower Missis¬ 
sippi Valley, would have been averted; and 
Whereas the States on the banks of the river have already 1 expended some 
seventy millions of dollars in their individual efforts to build levees of suffi¬ 
cient strength and height, as against an expenditure of some thirty millions 
by the Federal Government; and 

Whereas the present system of small appropriations is both ineffective and ex¬ 
pensive, and it is essential that the completion of the levees should be accom¬ 
plished at the earliest possible date; and 
Whereas the bill now before Congress, known as the Ransdeil-Humphreys bill, 
while placing the work in the hands of the Federal Government, also pro¬ 
vides that a fair proportion of the expense shall be borne by the localities 
protected, and will give the prompt relief which is imperative: Be it 

Resolved , That this convention, consisting of delegates from all over the State 
of Louisiana, does hereby earnestly and respectfully urge upon Congress that it 
enact at its next session the provisions of the Ransdeil-Humphreys bill now 
before it. 

M. J. Sanders, Chairman. 

G. H. Clinton, Secretary. 


Whereas it is the sense of this Louisiana convention that, appreciating the pos¬ 
sibilities of flood prevention in the United States as is embodied in sections 
of the bill known as the Newlands bill: Therefore be it 

Resolved , That we request of Congress to appoint a commission to make the 
necessary investigation of these possibilities and to provide funds to pay ex¬ 
penses of said commission. 

M. J. Sanders, Chairman. 

G. H. Clinton, Secretary. 

Whereas there have been great floods in the Ohio Valley, causing enormous loss 
of life and property, during the current year and in other years very great 
disasters from floods in other localities: Be it therefore 

Resolved , That, sympathizing heartily with flood sufferers in every part of the 
country, we call upon Congress, through its proper agents, to investigate, pre¬ 
pare plans, and to provide the necessary measures of relief against floods at the 
earliest practicable time; and be it further 

Resolved , That we earnestly urge our Senators and Representatives in Con¬ 
gress to take an active interest and assist in these measures. 

M. J. Sanders, Chairman. 

G. H. Clinton, Secretary. 


Resolved , That Congress be asked to extend the jurisdiction of the Mississippi 
River Commission over the Atchafalaya River and the lower Red River, and 
also to investigate the advisability of constructing spillways in the lower Mis¬ 
sissippi to relieve flootj conditions. 

M. J. Sanders, Chairman. 

G. H. Clinton, Secretary. 




328 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


These are the resolutions which I would like to have your permis¬ 
sion to file with you. I would say, Mr. Chairman, that the State of 
Louisiana is in a position as to the Mississippi River and its floods 
that is more unique, if possible, than that of any of the other over¬ 
flowed States. All the water that comes into the Mississippi River 
and passes New Orleans in 12 months could possibly pass there in 
half an hour to an hour. We get the rest of it from every other State 
that is included in that black line on the map, from the northern 
borders of Louisiana to the sea. We are the drainage ditch of every 
one of those States. Nearly all of you gentlemen here are sending 
your water that you do not want at home down to us free of expense 
to you. We are asking the Government to relieve you of that duty 
and keep your surplus water within reasonable bounds at home, and 
especially in flood time to keep it off our lands. 

It seems to me, gentlemen, the highest duty of the Government is 
toward the life and, in a minor degree, the property of its citizens, 
just on the same theory that the Government went to the expense of 
sending a ship to Morocco to protect the lives of American citizens 
or sending an army to protect and secure the property of an Ameri¬ 
can citizen in Central or South America. So I think a citizen of the 
Ohio Valley or the Mississippi is in a still greater degree entitled to 
protection from the Federal Government. That, it seems to me, is 
the highest duty of the Government in this matter. When I went to 
New Orleans, 40 years ago, a 16-foot levee was quite enough to keep 
the waters out. The States above us kept building levees and doing 
one thing and another to get clear of their surplus water and kept 
piling it down on us until now we have our levees between 24 and 
25 feet, and the engineers tell us that unless we get to a 25-foot levee 
we will not be safe. 

In New Orleans we have not, perhaps, felt the burden as they have 
in the States, although we are now paying a 2-mill tax right straight 
along, and will, no doubt, have to do that for 40 or 50 years for our 
local levees, but when it comes to the outside parishes the burden is 
greater. Before the war Louisiana had, as I understand it, a very 
fair system of levees which were largely swept away by the vicissi¬ 
tudes of war, and ever since then the State has been struggling to 
rebuild them. 

The difference, as I understand, in the water that is now passing 
New Orleans and what it was when the 16-foot levee was sufficient 
is practically double. That is the water that is accumulated from 
every State. That is that additional water. Now, it seems to me 
that is something from which we are entitled to relief. Another 
thing that has helped produce that condition has been that Congress, 
in its efforts to aid navigation on our rivers and tributaries, has 
been taking this water and pouring it quickly in the main river and 
creating these floods, when previously it went into the unsettled 
swamps. That is where we get our main water. Every one of those 
sections, in the effort to improve their own locality, has been throw¬ 
ing their water dowm upon us, and that is where we feel w T e want the 
Government to take it up and aid us in building the levees and main¬ 
taining them. The theory of the levee is to keep the water moving, 
to keep the sediments from the upper Missouri from coming down 
upon us. Some of you who have seen the Missouri and its tributaries 
in flood time have seen what a sea of liquid mud is brought down— 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 329 

valuable soil that ought to be kept away from us. So by all this you 
will see that these aids to navigation have also contributed to the 
flood situation. 

There has been considerable said here to-day about the interstate 
feature of this problem and the authority of Congress to legislate 
on levies in connection with that. I would state that until the levies 
from the efforts of the States themselves gave reasonable protection 
there were practically no railroads in this Mississippi Valley in the 
Delta. Since they have that reasonable protection railroads have 
multiplied by the thousands of miles. But when one of these floods 
come, as soon as the first shock of the danger to life and property 
is past, the first thing that occurs to me as a transportation man is 
this: How is it going to affect my business in the way of stopping 
cargo coming in from Arkansas? The first thing I will get is a tele¬ 
gram from my agent at Kansas: “ Can I tell the mills whether it is 
safe to send their flour through New Orleans? Will you be over¬ 
flowed ? ” That keeps us busy for a while. We have a branch of our 
line going to Galveston. The next thing is that we can not get our 
mail through. We can not get through ourselves. We have to work 
day letters and night letters with the telegraph company overtime. 
We are cut off. Two years ago the'situation was so bad that a num¬ 
ber of steamship lines had to divert their steamers from New Orleans, 
because the cargoes which they had booked were simply cut off all 
through western Louisiana; in fact, some on the east bank were 
also isolated. I remember in one instance, I think in 1882, when 
letters from Texas had to go to Fort Worth and then up to St. Louis 
and Kansas City and work down that way to get to New Orleans. 

Now, is there any difference between the railroads and the steam¬ 
ships? Is there any difference between them and the railroad which 
carries mails, passengers, and freight? It seems to me that the way 
is clear, so far as these levees are concerned, because those railroads 
could not be built without the levees, and they can* not exist to-day 
without improved levees. That is, they can*not exist when those 
pressures of water are such that they will break the present levees 
and shut them out, as they did two years ago and to a minor extent 
this year. Louisiana is a great producing State. The greater pro¬ 
portion of her products are exported and carried beyond her borders. 
She is hampered in that way to a great extent. She is one of the 
greatest buyers from every part of the Union of every conceivable 
product, fivery man’s trade all over the country is interrupted both 
in what he buys from Louisiana and in what he sells to her. The 
whole machinery of commerce is at a standstill when these floods 
come and break our levees. 

Mr. Chairman, I do not feel competent to speak of the increased 
value of lands and matters of that sort, except to say that the thought 
occurs to me that the potential value of all that land is increased. It 
has not been the fact that the levees that have been built have drained 
the land in the sense that the man who has dry land irrigates it, but 
the levees are simply the preparatory step. 

Most of that land is not worth anything more after those levees 
are up than it was before they were up, unless, as they are doing in 
numerous cases, they go in and form themselves into drainage dis¬ 
tricts and associations to spend what is necessary, $10, $20, $30, or 
$40 an acre to be sure that they get the water off that land without 


330 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


reference to what the Mississippi levees have done. That is what it 
seems to me is the real appearance of that project as to the increased 
value of the lands behind the levees. If it was not for the increase 
in the water that is thrown down upon us, every State in the delta 
w T ould have had a line of levees that would be perfect for the pur¬ 
poses, but with that increased water coming down it has been beyond 
their means. But we are not asking you to let the Government 
spend all this money. It has been explained to you that, even under 
this bill, the States interested will have contributed fully 50 per cent. 
I do not believe there are figures that give a fair value or a fair state¬ 
ment of the amount of money that Louisiana and other States in the 
Mississippi Valley have spent on levees. I do not believe that $70,- 
000,000 covers it, or $100,000,000. They have been doing it for 200 
years, one levee after another, and that is going to keep on until it 
is brought to a standard. We are asking you, gentlemen, to give us 
that standard, to let the Government do what it thinks is its duty to 
do to relieve those floods, to relieve us of this constantly increasing 
menace which we have to provide against. 

We do not think it is fair to ask us to protect our lands from every 
drop of water that is not needed for irrigation in the whole Missis¬ 
sippi Valley. 

Now, in reference to these other resolutions. I will be very brief. 

Mr. Powers. Can I ask you a question at that point? 

Mr. Ross. Certainly. 

Mr. Powers. Regarding the Mississippi River merely as a channel 
of interstate commerce, to what extent is the commerce of the delta 
system carried exclusively on the Mississippi River as compared with 
what is carried exclusively on the railroads in the delta, giving it as 
your judgment as a transportation man? 

Mr. Ross. I would say as a transportation man that the levees that 
the State have built have enabled the railroads to so fortify them¬ 
selves that they have practicaly taken the business away from the 
river. There is, however, a very large business done on the river, 
and with further improvements that will again grow; but at present 
the railroads have it, and they are going to kep it if they can, but 
they have to be protected by these levees. 

Now. there is a point that occurs to me there that is right germane 
to this very question—or two points. Just after the flood I was car¬ 
ried up to Hot Springs, Va. I found that the railroad up to Hot 
Springs had been completely washed out by those floods, and, as 
it happened, pretty much all the railroads in the Southeast were 
represented there in a convention that had to go into different rail¬ 
road matters, and about every private car in the Southwest was on 
the tracks. But a week before they could not have gotten there. 
Now, the city of Dayton, what is her business? Her business is 
largely one wdiich is an interstate business and an international 
business. I think if you remove the cash register from Dayton, 
there would not be much reason for Dayton, but that cash register 
goes all over the world. Is that not interstate and foreign commerce ? 
I mention that to show how, to my mind, these matters are inter¬ 
woven in the interstate commerce. You can not touch any part of 
the country but what* you touch interstate commerce, and I believe 
anything that contributes to that and contributes to help that con¬ 
tributes to the real purpose of interstate commerce. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 331 

We have asked that the Lower Red River and the Atchafalaya 
River be included in the jurisdiction of the Mississippi River Com¬ 
mission. 

Mr. Barchfeld. At this particular time, do you not think the Mis¬ 
sissippi River Commission have all they can do to look after the 
Mississippi River proper? 

Mr. Ross. The Mississippi River Commission have taken it upon 
themselves to go down the Atchafalaya as far as Millville, and they 
have been forced to go into the Red River; but we feel the whole o*f 
the Atchafalaya River is a part of the problem, and they will work it 
out on that line if they have more defined authority. 

Mr. Barchfeld. I mention this because I live at the headwaters of 
the Ohio, and we have a thousand miles of the Ohio we are requesting 
to have improved; and there are thousands of miles of tributaries 
that we are asking to have improved. We are just as anxious to come 
down to you. 

Mr. Ross. And w 7 e want to help you on the flood matter if we can 
do so. I think, Mr. Chairman, that is all I have to say. 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. A great deal has been said here 
about the enhancement of the value of those lands by the building of 
levees. The real fact of the matter is that the vast majority of the 
people of those deltas are not landowners, and yet they are most 
seriously and disastrously affected by the floods. 

Mr. Ross. The people who do not own the lands are the people who 
suffer the most. 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. The great mass of the farmers, for 
instance, who live there—small farmers who rent 20 acres of land or 
25 or 30 acres, who own mules and cows have their cattle and all their 
implements and possessions of that sort destroyed by these floods. 
Yet they do not own any of these lands. The increased value of the 
land affects a comparatively few people who are benefited by the pre¬ 
vention of the floods. Is that not true? 

Mr. Ross. That is true. 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. So that to put all this burden on 
the landowners would not be putting it on the people—all the peo¬ 
ple—who would be directly benefited. 

Mr. Ross. To keep the water off this land by levees would make 
certain the life of the tenant farmer and the life of the tradesman, 
the life of everyone residing there, and not one in a hundred of 
them are interested in the direct ownership of lands. 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. Mr. John M. Parker, of your 
State, gave us one instance here a year ago. The levee broke near 
his plantation and one of his negro tenants owned six mules and a 
good deal of other stock, all of which were drowned, but he did not 
own an acre of land. 

Mr. Ross. Well, their lives and their livelihoods are at stake from 
these floods. The land is there; it remains; eventually it will all be 
improved and the owners will take possession, but the man who lives 
there and rents it and works hard, he is the real sufferer. 

Mr. Donohoe. Is there any thought of protecting the tenant 
farmers from an increase in rent? 

Mr. Ross. I think, as Kipling said, that is another story; but gen¬ 
erally those things work out in a competitive country pretty fairly, 
and 1 believe where there is one man to-day who is an owner of land 


332 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


and you protect that land, in 10 years 50 per cent of the present 
tenant farmers will be landowners simply because they will feel 
themselves safe if you protect their land. 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. But the owner of the land will not 
be the only man who will get the benefit of the protection ? 

Mr. Ross. Eventually, but if 50 per cent of the tenant farmers 
to-day are put in position where the fruits of their labor will enable 
them to accumulate and purchase their little plat of land, why, you 
are distributing that wealth among a great number of people. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. But, according to statements made 
here, the value of that land after the protection is given will be im¬ 
mensely more than it is now. 

Mr. Ross. Not unless the owner of it goes to work and spends 
money. But to make that available he has to clear the land, he has 
to spend a lot of money on it. He may spend $30 or $40 an acre on 
it. Of course, there will be a potential increase from the mere fact 
of a knowledge of security. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. That is, the very hope of that pro¬ 
tection has increased the value from $1.50 to $30 ? 

Mr. Ross. That was a special section; but, speaking for Louisiana, 
I do not believe that any increase will come from all that the Gov¬ 
ernment can do on our levees, except to give the owners of that land 
security for the money they want to put into it for improvements 
in the way of drainage and pumping the water off the land and keep¬ 
ing it in good condition. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. I wish some of us could get op¬ 
tions at this time from those tenant farmers. 

Mr. Ross. When I first went to Louisiana I could get rice land at 
ridiculously low prices, and the Government has not done anything 
there to improve the land. It has been done by the efforts of the 
owners themselves, but they happen to be in a section that is not 
affected by the Mississippi. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. There are lands in Oregon that 
would be worth a hundred times what they are worth now if they 
had perfect irrigation. 

Mr. Ross. I wish they would keep their water at home and use it 
for that irrigation. 

(At 4.50 p. m. the committee adjourned until to-morrow,* Thurs¬ 
day, December 4, at 10.30 a. m.) 


Committee on Rivers and Harbors, 

House of Representatives, 
Thursday , December 4, 1913. 

The committee met at 10.45 o’clock a. m., Hon. Stephen M. Spark¬ 
man (chairman) presiding. 

The Chairman. Senator, would you like to proceed now? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, Mr. Chairman. 

The Chairman. Very well. 

Statement of Hon. Le Roy Percy, of Greenville, Miss. 

Mr. Percy. With the permission of the chairman and the gentle¬ 
men of the committee, I will submit a somewhat informal and desul¬ 
tory presentation covering some of the points that came up in yes¬ 
terday’s discussion of the bill, and then I will close the hearing by 
having Col. Townsend address the committee on the subject. I shall 
be as brief as I can be, simply stating in regard to the engineering 
problems connected with the questions'the conclusions reached by the 
engineers, without going over the arguments by which they have 
reached this conclusion. 

Mr. Chairman, in presenting the question of controlling the floods 
of the lower Mississippi River by the National Government through 
levees secured by adequate bank revetment, we present nothing that 
is new, nothing that is untried, nothing that has not been sanctioned 
by the approval of every authority upon whom has devolved the duty 
of dealing with the flood situation along the lower Mississippi, and 
nothing the wisdom of which has not been vindicated by time and 
experience. 

In 1861 Abbott and Humphreys made the first official report on 
the subject of controlling the floods of the lower Mississippi River, 
and they recommended, in a book which has from that day to this 
been a standard authority on the subject, that this control could be 
obtained by levees and in no other way. 

Following the flood of 1874 Congress appointed a board of engi¬ 
neers to investigate and report on the best method of controlling the 
flood situation along the lower Mississippi, and that report, made in 
1875, reiterated the position taken by Abbott and Humphreys. 

Following the flood of 1897 a Senate investigation was instituted 
and prosecuted for months, followed by a report in 1898 in which 
all the various methods of treating the Mississippi River were elabo¬ 
rately considered and discussed and the same conclusion reached— 
that levees afford the only means of adequate control. 

In 1879 the Mississippi River Commission was created, composed 
of eminent Army engineers and of civilians, selected because of their 
ability as engineers, with the exception of one member of the com¬ 
mission, who has always been a civilian and not an engineer. From 
that time down to the present day this board, eminently qualified to 
deal w T ith this question, has been continuously studying the treat- 
30573 0 — H. Rep. 300, 63-2, pt 2-22 333 


334 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

ment of the lower Mississippi River, both in regard to its low water 
and flood stages. As late as May, 1913, in response to a request from 
Congress, that commission made a report in which they reiterated 
the soundness of the proposition heretofore laid down, without a 
discordant note from any who had examined the question, and dis¬ 
posed of the other methods of treatment which at various times had 
been suggested, and in the course of the 30 years that the commission 
has been studying this question they necessarily had to investigate 
every theory and every mode of treatment suggested, and the means 
have been as numerous as the mind of man could conceive of. 

To recapitulate in a brief way the different cardinal problems which 
they have encountered: The first and the most continuously reiterated 
erroneous proposition was that the levees raised the bed of the 
river and therefore the floods would forever grow higher and the 
building of levees would be without bounds except as to the financial 
ability to put dirt up. That was investigated, because it went right 
to the root of the whole question. The rivers of Asia and Europe, 
of Italy, Hungary, and China, the Po, the Rhine, the Yellow River, 
and several others were investigated, and it was shown that there 
had never been, by reason of levees along any silt-bearing stream, a 
rising of the bed of the stream thereby; that the only authentic 
knowledge that we have where the bed of any silt-bearing stream 
has been raised is in the case of the Nile where it has been raised 2.11 
meters through a period of 1,600 years, and that not caused by a 
levee situation. 

Mr. Taylor. What is that in American measurement ? 

Mr. Percy. About 7 feet. It is less than 6 inches to every century. 
The commission has made as elaborate an investigation in connec¬ 
tion with this subject of the Mississippi River as could be made, tested 
by the time that the levees have, to a certain extent, been kept up, 
and the result of that investigation is corroborative of the knowledge 
derived from every other river in the world. 

Then came the question of reforestation. It was said that re¬ 
forestation would be extremely helpful in handling these floods, but 
beyond the fact that you can not put back into the wilderness country 
which has been subdued out of the wilderness by man’s energy, that 
you have no place to reforest, and the enormous expense incident to 
it and the very doubtful benefit derived from it, the conclusion as 
reached by the commission—I will just state the conclusion—is 
summed up in a statement made by the chairman of that commission, 
even admitting the claims as to the effect of reforestation in reducing 
the water flow. In Appendix B of the report of the president of the 
Mississippi River Commission to the Chief of Engineers, Col. Town¬ 
send disposes of the matter in this way: 

In other words, to reduce the height of a flood at Memphis by reforestation 
at the headwaters of the river from that of 1012 to the next highest on record, 
would require a forest reservation of about 566.000 square miles, an area 
exceeding that of the portions of Montana and Wyoming drained by the Mis¬ 
souri River, and the States of North and South Dakota, the portion of Minnesota 
drained by the upper Mississippi River, and the States of Iowa, Wisconsin, 
Illinois, and Indiana. But even such a forest reservation would afford only 
partial protection, and large expenditures for levees would still be required. 
Under the above assumptions to prevent any overflow by reforestation would 
necessitate a practical abandonment of the valley for agricultural purposes 
and the development of an extensive irrigation system to produce tree growth 
in arid regions of the West. 


FLOODS AND LEVELS OF THE MISSISSIPPI EIVEE. 


335 


Then came up the question of the outlet theory, and when you 
consider the outlet in connection with the proposition that this river 
at its highest stage pours down twelve times as much as goes over 
Niagara Falls, amounting to 2,300,000 cubic feet per second, it will 
be seen that you would simply double your expense by doubling your 
line of levees, and you would necessarily destroy your navigation 
by impeding the flow of the main river. 

Then came the question of reservoirs, and without going through 
the arguments which the commission has gone through to reach its 
conclusion I will show what the conclusions have been. The Chief 
of Engineers, Gen. Bixby, said before this committee less than a 
year ago that to build any reservoir that would seriously affect the 
floods of the lower Mississippi River would require a reservoir as 
large as the State of Kentucky. In this report there is just this spe¬ 
cific data on the question, and this refers, of course, to reservoirs 
considered solely with regard to the ability thereof to control the 
floods of the lower Mississippi and not the building of reservoirs 
in localities where they may benefit local conditions. Col. Townsend, 
the president of the commission, is also a member of the board to 
investigate the reservoirs at Pittsburgh. In his report he uses these 
figures: 

I have recently been appointed a member of a board to investigate the use of 
reservoirs to protect the city of Pittsburgh from overflow. The Pittsburgh 
flood commission has a carefully prepared project which proposes to store in 17 
reservoirs 59.000,000,000 cubic feet of water at an estimated cost of about 
$21,000,000, which I consider very reasonable. Fifty-nine thousand million is 
a pretty large looking figure, but I made a little computation to see what it 
meant when translated into a unit applicable to the Mississippi River, and 
found that during less than seven hours 59.000,000,000 cubic feet of water 
flowed by the latitude of Red River at the crest of the recent flood, and, based 
on the estimate of the flood commission, it would therefore require over $73,- 
000,000 to build reservoirs that would hold the water that passed down the 
river in one day. The cost of storing one day’s flow is ample for all the levee 
construction required on the river, while if reliance is placed on reservoirs, 
provision must also be made for the other 4S days the river was above a bank- 
full stage. 

And again: 

To have retained the Mississippi flood of 1912 within its banks would have 
required a reservoir in the vicinity of Cairo, Ill., having an area of 7,000 square 
miles, slighty less than that of the State of New Jersey, and a depth of about 
15 feet, assuming that it would be empty when the river attained a bank-full 
stage. If the site of such a reservoir was a plane surface the quantity of ma¬ 
terial to be excavated in its construction would be over 100,000,000,000 cubic 
yards, and its estimated cost from fifty to one hundred thousand million dollars. 
Such a volume of earth would build a levee line 7,000 miles long and over 150 
feet high. 

Again, he says: 

The proposed system of reservoirs would have.cost hundreds of millions of 
dollars, and its effect on this year’s flood height of the lower Mississippi could 
not possibly have exceeded 6 inches. 

It seems to me that that disposes of the reservoir question so far 
as the lower Mississippi is concerned. If this work is to be done at 
all, it must be done by levee supplemented by bank revetment to 
give permanence and stability to those levees. If that is true, the 
question which presents itself is. How is the National Government 


336 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE .MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

concerned in this? Why should it be called upon to bear all or any 
part of the great expense incident to this work? 

First, I would say that what distinguishes this from every other 
proposition that has come, or ever can come, before this committee is 
the magnitude of the work itself, its magnitude in the amount of 
water to be handled, its magnitude in reference to the domain to be 
protected, its magnitude when considered in reference to the appall¬ 
ing disaster that follows a failure to protect, its magnitude in the 
work to be done to bring about that protection. As to the magnitude 
arising from the control of the water, that has been gone over again 
and again to this committee. It represents the drainage of 31 States, 
or parts of States, constituting 41 per cent of the entire area of the 
United States. This great drainage ditch of the Nation brings down 
this flow from all the States of the Union and leaves it to be cared 
for by the six States along the borders of the lower Mississippi 
River. That in itself distinguishes it from anything else that claims 
the consideration of this committee. Then, there is the magnitude 
of the domain that is protected, a domain of 29,000 square miles, or 
20,000,000 acres of land, 16,000,000 acres of which are susceptible of 
protection by the levees of the Mississippi River, an area susceptible, 
not under highly intensive cultivation, but simply under intelligent 
cultivation, of producing as great a cotton crop as has ever been 
grown upon all the cotton lands of the United States when they 
produce their greatest crop. 

Mr. Taylor. Senator, may I interrupt you? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Taylor. I had a discussion, going down the Mississippi 
River, with Prof. McGee, or Dr. McGee, now dead, and his estimate 
of the mileage of that territory that was to be considered, which you 
figure at 29,000 square miles, he figured that to me at 40,000 square 
miles. Now, I would like to have that matter settled, as to who 
is right and who is wrong. His view was that it was 40,000 square 
miles. 

Mr. Percy. Twenty-nine thousand square miles are the figures 
recognized as correct by the Mississippi River Commission, the only 
body that has had any accurate survey made for the purpose of de¬ 
termining exactly what acreage is practically embraced in the Delta 
of the Mississippi River. 

Mr. Taylor. What do you make of that 20,000 square miles? 

Mr. Percy. No; 20,000,000 acres, and of that 20,000,000 acres I 
eliminate 4,000,000 acres which, because of their lowness and because 
of their being affected by the baclcwater, can not be protected by 
levees, leaving 16,000,000 acres. 

Mr. Taylor. You mean that 4,000,000 acres must necessarily be 
abandoned to the floods that come ? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Taylor. That can not be protected? 

Mr. Percy. That can not be protected. 

Mr. Taylor. And that area of 16,000,000 acres, then, is what covers 
the problem? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir; that is it. The total cotton land of the United 
States amounts to 35,000,000 acres, and the greatest cotton crop ever 
produced is 16,000,000 bales of cotton, and those 16,000,000 acres, with 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER-. 337 

their unsurpassed fertility, in a state of intelligent cultivation, are 
capable of producing as large a cotton crop as has ever been produced 
in the entire United States. 

Mr. Taylor. In this same conversation Dr. McGee—you know what 
his reputation was? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Taylor. And what his intelligence was? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Taylor. And what force is to be given to what he thought and 
his opinions? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Taylor. He also said that that section there was equal to San 
Francisco or any other part of California for raising fruit or any¬ 
thing else. 

Mr. Percy. Of course, that is more or less a matter of speculation. 
So far as the fertility of the soil goes, it is equal to any land in the 
world. So far as the humidity of the climate is concerned, I am not 
able to say how that might affect the question of fruit growing. 

Mr. Taylor. You views are simply bound to the matter of cotton? 

Mr. Percy. I put it in cotton because I know what it can do by 
what they proved it to be able to produce; I know what can be done 
by what that part of it that has been protected has done, and there¬ 
fore I am not going into any realm of speculation or surmise when I 
make that statement. It is an empire that is asking for protection. 
On the other hand, think of the magnitude of the disaster that would 
shock the Nation if this protection failed. A man falls overboard 
from a skiff and he drowns and it is a question between him and his 
widow and the world does not notice it, but a great ocean craft strikes 
an iceberg and goes down with thousands of souls and the whole 
civilized world is shocked. A house burns down and the insurance 
company either pays the insurance or squabbles over the loss. An 
earthquake jars San Francisco and a fire sweeps over it and the 
Congress of the United States, shocked by the magnitude alone of the 
disaster, pours out its millions of dollars in relief of the stricken 
people. An acre of land is flooded and it is nobody’s concern but 
the owner’s. An empire is devastated by the angry waters of the 
Mississippi and the whole Nation takes notice of the horror and the 
disaster attendant upon it. [Applause.] The waters of 1912 con¬ 
verted 10,000 square miles—an area greater than the States of Rhode 
Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, as great as the States of 
Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Jersey—into a vast inland sea, 
and on the yellow waters of that sea were borne the homes and the 
accumulations of generations, and everywhere over that broad expanse 
of water—in the open fields and in the silent woods—men, women, and 
children struggled for their lives and went down in the embrace of 
the yellow flood. 

One hundred and fifty thousand people, self-reliant, self-sustaining, 
willing to earn their livelihood if given the chance to do so, were put 
upon the pay roll of the Government and fed by daily rations at 10 
cents per head per day. Oh, yes. The magnitude of it alone differ¬ 
entiates it from any other matter that is brought before the com¬ 
mittee. This is not a disaster which has occurred and which you 
will never face again, but unless intelligent action is taken to avert 


338 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


it it is one that will rise up again and shock the conscience of this 
Nation in the future as it has in the past. 

Mr. Booher. Have you the amount of money that was appropriated 
by Congress for the relief of the sufferers from the floods of 1912 ? 

Mr. Percy. My recollection is that it was $1,500,000 just to feed 
people and furnish them with tents inadequate shelter to replace the 
houses that the floods had washed away while they were building. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. The Secretary of War said in his 
address last year that it was two and a half million. 

Mr. Percy. The controlling reason for asking for national aid is 
the absolute demonstrable inability of the localities to protect them¬ 
selves. There is not the machinery for cooperation provided under 
our form of government between the six States directly affected, if 
the means existed for the proper disbursements of the funds raised. 
But, leaving that aside, supposing that could be arranged, it is the 
pecuniary inability of the delta of the Mississippi to protect itself 
that makes Federal protection a necessity, if protection is to be 
accorded at all. 

I do not hesitate to say to this committee, and I have no uncer¬ 
tainty about the correctness of the statement, that if the word went 
back to the Mississippi Valley from this committee that the Federal 
Government had found this problem either too great or outside of 
its scope, and had said, “ Upon your own efforts you in the valley must 
rely for your salvation,” not only would the potential development 
be destroyed, but that country, over 70 per cent of it, within 10 
years would revert to the jungle. Civilization there would be blotted 
out; prosperity would be destroyed. This is not a conjecture. We 
have tried it. We have in the past raised in round numbers by local 
taxation $67,000,000 for levy protection. Where has that come from ? 
Three and one-half million acres of land are under cultivation, good, 
bad, and indifferent. That land has produced that revenue through 
taxation, for the woodland in the past has contributed under our 
system of taxation little or nothing. Three and a half million acres 
have contributed $67,000,000 in their effort to protect themselves. 
There is no other problem that ever will come before this committee 
where, if the people in the localities affected had submitted for any 
such length of time to any such onerous taxation, they could not 
have solved the problem without coming to the Federal Govern¬ 
ment at all. 

In 1880, before the Federal Government had indicated a willing¬ 
ness to help in this work, the Yazoo Delta, more favorably situated 
with regard to levees than any other district on the river, because 
it is a great basin divided into two districts with only one outlet, 
and therefore there is no difficulty arising out of the feasibility of 
protection by the levee system—in 1880 more than 50 per cent of 
the land of the Yazoo delta had gone back to the State of Missis¬ 
sippi under sales made to pay levee debts. In our effort to protect 
ourselves by our own taxation we had taxed out of the hands of indi¬ 
viduals back into the hands of the State, where it yielded no revenue 
either for State or county purposes, more than one-half of the total 
acreage of that delta. The fight was over and we were whipped. 
And elsewhere along the river, in the great majority of places, no 
levee districts had been formed. Then the Government came in and 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


339 


held out a hope it was not what they expended, because it was 
comparatively little—which gave a fictitious sense of security to the 
people, and they took heart and borrowed money on credit, based on 
belief in Federal aid. 

Mr. Taylor. I hope I will not interrupt you? 

Mr. Percy. Not at all. 

Mr. 1 aylor. Because I want to understand the proposition as you 
go along, and you have been making it more clear to me than it has 
been. Do I understand, and is it a fair conclusion from what you 
nave stated, that you have demonstrated that it was more than the 
local interests could bear to build up this protection for the districts? 
. Mr. Percy. That was not exactly it; but I think I can demonstrate 
it, and I will. 

Mr. Taylor. Well, I am very anxious to arrive at what is the real 
equity; the equity suggested in this bill is only one-third. 

Mr. Percy. I understand; but I am going to treat of that very 
question. 

Mr. Taylor. Then, I will not ask you any more questions about 
that. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. Senator, before you take up that 
point, I wish you would explain a little further in regard to those 
10,000,000 acres that you say will be reclaimed, to use that expression, 
which was objected to yesterday- 

Mr. Percy. Say “protected.” 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. Yes, sir; protected. What por¬ 
tion of that is at present cultivated? 

Mr. Percy. Three million five hundred and eighty-five thousand 
acres. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. Three and a half million acres 
out of this 16,000,000 acres that is cultivated now ? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. That three and a half million 
acres has paid how much? 

Mr. Percy. $67,000,000. Before I pass to another point I had in 
mind I would like to say that the levee system has not proven itself 
to be a failure. There are so many remedies and so many nostrums 
and so many prescriptions for the river that you very often meet 
with the statement that the levee system is a failure. It has not 
proven a failure from an engineering standpoint. 

Now, I will ask the committee to bear this in mind, because I will 
be followed by the chairman of the commission, and if I am mistaken 
he will correct me. In all the floods that have passed down the Mis¬ 
sissippi River since 1879, when the Mississippi River Commission 
‘was created, there has not been one single crevasse, with the excep¬ 
tion possibly of the Hymelia crevasse in 1912, which has occurred 
in a levee built up to Government standard and specifications. [Ap¬ 
plause.] In every detail the levee system has verified what the en¬ 
gineers who arranged it have claimed for it. 

Mr. Taylor. I do not know whether I catch that statement fully. 
You say there has not been a failure? 

Mr. Percy. There has not been one single, solitary break caused 
by the floods of the Mississippi River in a levee built up to Govern¬ 
ment standard and specifications. Not only that, but levees have 


340 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


been maintained under conditions under which the most optimistic 
of the engineers said it was not possible to maintain them. For 
miles and miles along the Mississippi River levees have been built 
from 4 to 5 feet high in the face of an increasing flood; men work¬ 
ing by day and by night, built out of sacks filled with dirt, simply 
piled on each other, levees on the banks of the river, and through 
those flimsy and insufficient walls that they have created the great 
floods have passed down without crevasses. 

In 1913, at Beulah the report of the Mississippi River Commission 
shows that the flood was successfully held in bounds by a levee built 
by sacks piled up 20 feet high, filled with loose wet mud. So the 
floods have demonstrated that the levees are unsuccessful because 
you have always failed to carry out the recommendations of the en¬ 
gineers that you have appointed to tell you how the work should be 
done. It has been a happy-go-lucky kind of levee building, just using 
the little money that has come in in driblets from local organizations 
and from Federal aid. Again, the levee system has not proven a fail¬ 
ure in the results it has produced, even as insufficient as it has been. 
Some questions were asked yesterday by the chairman as to what 
has been the increase of valuation over the entire Mississippi Delta 
caused by levees, or, rather, caused since levees were inaugurated. 

The Chairman. Yes; I do not suppose that the building of levees 
is the only element to be considered among the causes of this great in¬ 
crease. 

Mr. Percy. Yes; I understand that. 

The Chairman. I understand that farm lands have gone up all 
over the country. 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir. It is easy to say in general terms that forests 
have been felled, manufactories have sprung up, towns and cities 
have grown, thousands of miles of railroads have been constructed, 
bank capital has increased, prosperity ha,s come through the security 
given to men in permitting them to work out their salvation. But 
the story is told in plain figures by the Government census of 1880 
and 1910. In 1880, according to the Government census, the delta 
had a population of 445,604. In 1910 it had a population of 829,720, 
or nearly double that of 1880. In 1880 there were 1,619,721 acres 
under cultivation. In 1910 the number of acres under cultivation 
was 3,585,000. So when I said that the three and a half million acres 
had paid the $67,000,000 you will see that three and a half million 
acres has been the maximum amount. In a few years it has been 
greatly increased. 

The Chairman. The tax is levied on the entire acreage, whether 
improved or not? 

Mr. Percy. Well, it varies in different districts. Im my own levee 
district there is a cotton tax of a dollar a bale. That amounts some¬ 
times to as much as a dollar an acre. Then there is an ad valorem tax 
of 10 mills on the value of the land, and there is also an acreage tax 
of 10 cents. 

The Chairman. The acreage tax is levied indiscriminately? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir; the bulk of it comes from the ad valorem tax. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. What is the reasonable market 
value of the land that is still subject to overflow and not cultivated— 
the 16,000,000 acres? 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


341 


Mr. Percy. This is just my opinion, but I should say that that 
land, especially where it had been cut over, will average $5 an acre. 
It runs from $1 to $12.50 per acre. 

Mr. Powers. I would like to ask you a question. I believe you 
said that there was 10,000,000 acres m this delta which can be cul¬ 
tivated if properly protected and that three and a half million acres 
were in cultivation now. I would like to get at the fact as to when 
the first levees were constructed and something as to the increasing 
number of acres that have been put in cultivation, so as to draw some 
conclusion as to the $67,000,000 tax that these people have borne. 

Mr. Percy. You see, in 1880 there was only a little over a million 
and a half acres in cultivation. At that time the effort to protect by 
local taxation had virtually reached its limit. Since that time 
2,000,000 acres more have been put in, and all that with the uncer¬ 
tainty as to whether the protection was effective and with recurring 
floods blotting out any prosperity that has come in the low-water 
stages. 

The Chairman. Senator, do those great floods come along about 
20 or 30 years apart ? 

Mr. Percy. No, sir; I am sorry to say they do not. I wish they 
did. [Laughter.] 

The Chairman. Well, I am not talking about the normal annual 
floods, but about the great floods. 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir. Well, the floods, without attempting to be 
exactly accurate, are variable. There was a high water in 1881. 
There was a very high-water stage in 1882 which, in my levee dis¬ 
trict alone, broke in one night 28 different places in the levee system. 

The Chairman. Now, perhaps you do not understand me. I am 
speaking of such floods as that which came last year. 

Mr. Percy. So am I. I know exactly what you have in mind. 
The flood of 1882 was one of the phenomenal floods. The flood of 
1883, while not as great in volume, was sufficient to overflow a large 
portion of the country. The next great flood, in 1897, was very bad. 
That flood, owing to its phenomenal character, was followed by the 
senatorial investigation of 1898. Then in 1903 we had a big river, 
and again in 1907. 

The Chairman. You seem to go back to the flood of 1882 for a 
standard. 

Mr. Percy. Well, 1882 was the greatest that ever came down the 
river until 1912, and probably there has been no such flood as great 
since 1844. 

Mr. Powers. Have you any figures showing the amount of prop¬ 
erty destroyed by these floods, say, from 1880 up to this last year? 

Mr. Percy. It is impossible to get it. The most accurate data that 
has been compiled has been by the Mississippi Levee Association, 
and they estimate not in loss of crops, which went into the millions, 
but in the actual destruction of property, $40,000,000 being destroyed 
in 1912 and $20,000,000 in 1913. 

Mr. Powers. That is aside from the crops? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir; that is aside from the crops. The value of 
personal property on the farm lands of the Delta in 1880 was 
$12,000,000, and in 1910 it was $50,000,000, four times as much as in 
1880. In 1880 there were 500 miles of railway in the Delta, in 1910 


342 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

there were 3,300, and now there are 3,700 miles of railroad. There 
are eight great trunk lines in the Delta. 

Mr. Powers. Do you have any figures on the loss of lives ? 

Mr. Percy. No, sir; I have none, because it is an agricultural 
country. Much of it is sparsely settled. I know that right in the 
county adjoining me, right within 20 miles of where I live, 20 people 
were drowned. 

The Chairman. That was the last flood ? 

Mr. Percy. The flood of 1912. Hundreds of lives were lost. 
Leaving out Memphis and Vicksburg, in 1880 there was only one 
banking institution with a capital of $20,000, deposits not being 
given. In 1910 there were 240 banks with a combined capital and 
surplus of $16,000,000 and with deposits amounting to $43,000,000. 
This shows what has come from the partial protection afforded dur¬ 
ing the period when the Government first held out its promise of 
protection. Upon that promise those people may have built be}mnd 
what they were strictly entitled to build. Upon that these thousands 
of miles of railroad have been built. Upon that this increase of 
cultivation has taken place, land has been cultivated which never 
would have been cultivated except for the fact that by the Govern¬ 
ment extending aid people believed that it was going to be efficient 
aid—that the Government was going to afford proper protection. 

Mr. Taylor. You speak of these increased railroad and increased 
business advantages, banking facilities, etc. Do you regard that as 
of value to the local interests alone or to the entire country? 

Mr. Percy. Undoubtedly to the entire country. And in that con¬ 
nection let me say that there is no agricultural country in the world 
which contributes as much to the outside world as the Mississippi 
Delta, because it imports everything it uses and exports everything 
it produces. 

Mr. Taylor. Have you any statement showing the value of those 
railroads? 

Mr. Percy. No, sir. 

Mr. Taylor. And the real value of the banking increases and the 
increases in property stated in dollars and cents? You have stated 
only the mileage. 

Mr. Percy. I have not attempted to arrive at the value of it. So, 
Mr. Chairman, we have heard what has been done in the way of 
levee building, and, so far as results go, it has been absolutely justi¬ 
fied. The President took up a considerable part of his message in 
recommending the expenditure of millions of dollars in order to 
develop Alaska, with its 35,000 white people to-day. Are you going 
to leave a great domain right here in the heart of your country un¬ 
protected? Are you going to force those who are wanting to go 
back to the farm to battle for their lives in order to have a chance to 
eat their bread in the sweat of their brow? Or will you simply 
protect that area and then let those who will go and conquer the 
wilderness and the forests in it? 

Now, as to the ability of the localities to protect themselves. If 
this committee would say that no more national aid would be ex¬ 
tended there is not a levee board in Mississippi or Louisiana or 
Arkansas that could float one dollar of bonds to throw up a spadeful 
of dirt. The district from which I come is composed of four 
counties. The assessed value is $22,000,000. We have issued three 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 343 

and a half million dollars of bonds for levee purposes. The last of 
them has been sold within the past 30 days for a million dollars. 
For the last 30 years we have never defaulted in the payment of 
principal or interest, and yet those bonds sold at 92^. They were 
4 per cent bonds, when heretofore we have sold 5 per cent bonds 
at par. 

The Chairman. What are the taxable resources of your county? 

Mr. Percy. The assessed value of the district is about $22,000,000. 
We could not float a thousand dollars of bonds to-day, and we could 
not have floated that million dollars’ worth except for the fact that 
it was thought the Government was going to aid in that work down 
there. We raise in those four counties a half a million dollars a year 
which we devote to levee purposes. Every treasury is empty. The 
credit of every levee board has reached its limit. Some districts in 
Louisiana last year did not raise a dollar to repair crevasses in their 
own levees, because they could not float a dollar’s worth of bonds. 
This is not a question of conjecture; it is just a bare, horrid reality. 

Mr. Treadway. Are those levee boards private enterprises or mu¬ 
nicipal enterprises? 

Mr. Percy. They are governmental, created out of a certain num¬ 
ber of counties. 

Mr. Taylor. Authorized by the State? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Treadway. Then there is a general taxation of the counties 
involved ? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Treadway. And instead of going into the county treasury it 
goes into the treasury of the board ? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Treadway. The assessment is laid upon the property itself? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir. They tax everything for levee purposes. 
There is a privilege tax, land tax, railroad tax, ad valorem tax, and 
every conceivable kind of property is subject to a tax. 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. There is a cotton tax and a tax on 
hay and on everything. 

Mr. Taylor. Is not that the result of the judgment of the several 
localities as to the capacity of that section to contribute to this 
work ? 

Mr. Percy. Well, that may be. Only one State gives State aid, and 
that is Louisiana. In the other levee districts the State simply per¬ 
mits these counties affected to organize themselves into levee districts 
and then grant them the privilege of taxing themselves. That is the 
extent of State aid. [Laughter.] 

Mr. Taylor. And that is the result of the judgment of those locali¬ 
ties as to what can be done? 

Mr. Percy. As to what they can bear; yes, sir. 

Mr. Treadway. I want to ask you a question in regard to the re¬ 
lationship between the levee board and the other authorities. What is 
the relation between those levee boards and this Mississippi River 
Commission ? 

Mr. Percy. Those levee boards, through the funds which they 
raise by taxation, cooperate with the Mississippi River Commission. 

Mr. Treadway. That is Federal, as I understand it ? 


344 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI KIVEE. 


Mr. Percy. Yes, sir; that is Federal. In the building and mainte¬ 
nance of these levees the Mississippi River Commission, out of the 
funds allotted to them by Congress, says: “ We are going to spend so 
much money in this district and so much money in that district, and 
with that money, through our engineers, we are going to do this 
piece of work and that piece of work, and you can do what you can 
about the work left over.” 

And they cooperate with the last dollar that they can raise. There 
has never been any shirking. There has never been any limitation 
except the ability to raise money by taxation. 

Mr. Treadway. What is that rate now; is it a fixed rate of taxa¬ 
tion? 

Mr. Percy. It is different in each levee district. 

Mr. Treadway. How many levee districts are there? 

Mr. Percy. There are about 24 districts. 

Mr. Treadway. And they are absolutely independent in their 
action both as to taxation and as regards work, but they are all 
cooperative with the Mississippi River Commission? 

Mr. Percy. Yes; they solicit all the Government appropriations 
they can get for the commission and then fight among themselves as 
to how much each one shall get from the commission. 

Mr. Treadway. But there is no arbitrary rate of taxation appli¬ 
cable to each levee district? 

Mr. Percy. No, sir. You see, you have six States interested there 
and they have different crops and different conditions. It is all a 
question as to how you can raise the greatest amount of taxes. 

Mr. Treadway. For instance, say that the general taxation rate is 
2 per cent. What percentage of that would go to the levee board on 
an average? 

Mr. Percy. I will just speak for my own district for illustration. 
We pay more than four times as much in levee taxes as we pay for 
every other tax—State, county, and Federal—put together. The 
bulk of taxation, the weight of it, is- in levee building. 

Mr. R. B. Oliver. I can speak for two districts. The Arkansas dis¬ 
trict pays 4^ per cent on the assessed valuation of the taxable wealth 
of that district. It is made subject to taxation. In Missouri we 
have a flat acreage tax, and we also have an ad valorem tax. In 
the St. Francis Levee district in Missouri we are paying a flat tax 
this year of 25 cents per acre, irrespective of the protection afforded. 
In addition to that we are paying a valuation tax of—Row much 
is that, Mr. Reynolds ? 

Mr. Reynolds. Fifteen cents per acre, making 40 cents per acre 
in all. 

Mr. Taylor. Do you pay a dollar for cotton tax? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. Senator, you say that none of the States except 
Louisiana has assisted in the building of levees? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. Why have not the other States done so? 

Mr. Percy. Well, that is rather a difficult question. Take the State 
of Mississippi and the delta; only the delta is subject to the brunt of 
the overflow of the Mississippi River. The delta constitutes about 
15 counties out of 79, and there are conditions there which absolutely 
distinguish it from the balance of the State. There is not very much 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


345 


commerce between the delta part and the hill section of the State; we 
buy what we need from other States. Ship what we sell to other 
States. The balance of the State does not realize that they are under 
any obligation to try to care for the waters of the Nation, and they 
are willing for the delta to contribute what it chooses by any kind of 
onerous taxation, and all they have ever done for us is to give us the 
right to tax ourselves, and sometimes they have withheld that; they 
simply envy us when we are dry and pity us when we are flooded. 

The Chairman. Have you a map showing these levee districts? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir. There is a compilation made up, which I 
will hand to the chairman. 

The Chairman. I would like to see a map of them. 

Mr. Percy. I have never seen a map showing all the names and 
the numbers of the different districts. 

Mr. Switzer. The names are shown on this map, but not the num¬ 
bers. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. The fact about it is that all the 
States have taken the position, with the exception of the State of 
Louisiana, that the locality that is benefited should bear the burden. 

Mr. Percy. They have taken the position that the burden should be 
borne by the Federal Government, and so far as they are concerned 
they are going to wash their hands of it. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. The States have taken the position 
that they will not assist those who are not directly benefited. For 
instance, the State of Missouri wants the Pacific Coast States, that are 
not directly or indirectly benefited except as to commerce, to help 
bear the same expense and pay the same rates that they pay. On the 
Pacific coast, I will say to the Senator, we look upon this thing dif¬ 
ferently, and I have wondered why the States along the Mississippi 
did not take the same position. 

Mr. Percy. Well, they have simply not taken it and have never 
made any appropriations for levee purposes. 

Mr. Taylor. Is not there a constitutional objection to a State en¬ 
gaging in such work ? It is so in my State. 

Mr. Percy. There is an insuperable aversion that is even more 
difficult to overcome than a constitutional provision. They just do 
not want to do it. 

Mr. Powers. To what extent does Louisiana tax herself as a State 
to aid in the levee work? 

Mr. Percy. One mill. Of course that is supplemented by local 
taxation. 

Now, it has been said that levees have raised the value of this land 
from a dollar an acre to anywhere from $75 to $100 an acre, and why 
should we not bear this whole burden of the taxation. Levees do 
not do that; have not done it and never can do it. When you drove 
the Indians out of the State of Illinois did the Federal Government 
by that act convert the State of Illinois into a garden? No. It 
simply said to the men who had the brawn and grit and courage to 
go there that “you can go there and make a living for yourselves if 
you have got the manhood to do it, unmolested by hostile tribes. In 
like manner these people from the valley of the Mississippi ask for 
one thing, and that is, the opportunity to go there and subdue the 
wilderness unmolested by the hostile waters that belong to this Na¬ 
tion. [Applause.] 


346 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


I believe that if I had four or five hours I could get all of you with 
me, but these are the people [indicating], the party right here, that I 
want to convince. [Laughter.] All that we ask is that we be given 
the opportunity to go there and endeavor to conquer the difficulties 
that nature has put between us and cultivation, and to do it without 
hindrance from the flood waters of the balance of the Union. The 
Government up to date has given us simply a fictitious sense of se¬ 
curity. They talk about the wealth of the delta. That wealth is as 
unreal as the mirage in the desert. The accumulations of a lifetime 
are swept aw T ay in the floods of a year. It has been one series of 
troubles and disappointments. It has been a fight to earn a liveli¬ 
hood such as no other agricultural people have made in this country 
since the Pilgrim Fathers first landed on Plymouth Pock. This has 
gone on through generations, and we would have abandoned hope 
if the Government had not said to us, “We are going to extend to 
you some aid.” And with that indefinite promise of aid the people 
leaped to the conclusion that the Federal Government was going 
to extend proper and efficient aid. You have got to go in there 
and spend from $50 to $75 an acre in clearing up that land and im¬ 
proving it before you can cultivate it. There are 3,500,000 acres of 
land cleared in the delta. There is not one acre of that land that 
does not represent in dollars and cents, outside of the $67,000,000 that 
they have paid for levee taxes, in their present imperfect state of 
cultivation, an expenditure of $50 an acre by the man who has put 
it in cultivation, and that not counting the years that he has spent 
in putting it into cultivation. The wealth of the people there is born 
of their optimism which exists between floods. It is the result of 
unceasing labor and toil. So I say, Mr. Chairman, that it is beyond 
all question of controversy that this is a work which can not be done 
by any local taxation. 

Mr. Taylor. Senator, would you be able to answer a concrete ques¬ 
tion that is in my mind? What proportion of the flood that comes 
into this acreage that you speak of is due to the overflow from the 
other States ? 

Mr. Percy. Ninety-nine per cent of it. In other words, the Mis¬ 
sissippi Eiver would not rise to the dignity of a brook except for the 
waters from the other States. 

Mr. Treadway. Can you tell me what percentage of the territory af¬ 
fected lies within those States? You said that Louisiana was the 
only State, as a State, which contributed to levee work. Now, what 
percentage of Louisiana is affected by the floods ? 

Mr. Percy. The secretary’s associate tells me that there are 14,000 
square miles of Louisiana affected by floods. There is a very small 
portion of Arkansas, a strip lying between the hills and the Missis¬ 
sippi Eiver, which is affected. To show you how small it is. it has 
never been able to raise enough, by taxation even to the point of con¬ 
fiscation, even to protect itself, and they are joined in their effort to 
protect themselves by the people of Louisiana who are affected by the 
breaks in their levees. 

Mr. Treadway. As a practical proposition, that area has not a vot¬ 
ing strength in the various legislatures sufficient to carry an appro¬ 
priation for that purpose. Is that true? 

Mr. Percy. You are painfully correct. [Laughter.] 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 347 

Mr. Powers. This Humphreys bill provides in the third section 
that this money to be expended by the Government shall not be put 
to use until the local districts involved put up a third of it. What 
would you think of this suggestion: That no money be expended by 
the Federal Government until the State puts up so much and the 
local taxation districts so much? 

Mr. Percy. The effect of it would be that there would never be 
another spadeful of dirt thrown up in any levee district in the val¬ 
ley. It could not be done by any coercion or pressure which might 
be brought to bear upon the States. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. That is exactly the proposition 
that California is about to urge before this committee now. They 
have in the Sacramento Valley a great project there. The local au¬ 
thorities of the districts have agreed to pay a certain portion of the 
money, the State pays a certain portion of it, and now they are com¬ 
ing to ask the. Government to pay a certain part of it. 

Mr. Percy. Of course, Mr. Humphrey, I am not familiar with that 
project, but they may have a less reason for calling upon the Govern¬ 
ment for aid than we have. It may constitute a sufficiently big thing 
to the State of California for the districts affected to be able to force 
or persuade the State to join them in their effort. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. But it does not affect the State of 
California to the same extent as this affects Mississippi and Louisiana. 

Mr. Percy. Well, one look at the map here will show you how 
very small is the area which acts as the ditch, because, when the Mis¬ 
sissippi Kiver is unrestrained by its levees, it goes from the hills on 
the west to those on the east. 

Mr. Taylor. Senator, in reference to the question that was put to 
you by Mr. Humphrey of Washington just now regarding the assist¬ 
ance rendered by States, as States, is it or not your view and the 
view of this bill that the one-third which you propose to be paid by 
the interests—what they call the local interests—is a fair and equit¬ 
able share for the protection against,the waters of the other States? 

Mr. Percy. That is true, Mr. Taylor; I am coming to that. That is 
a fair share, and whether it is raised by light taxation of the States or 
by onerous taxation of only the delta portions of them is immaterial 
so far as the equities go. 

Mr. Tavlor. That is what I wanted to bring out. 

Mr. Percy. The next question is, What is the cost of this work? 
That is by no means an undeterminable question. The engineers can 
just as well tell what kind of levees are needed and estimate the cost 
of constructing them as they can tell how a bridge can be constructed 
across a river to carry the traffic that is intended to go over it or 
how a building may be constructed to resist the winds that may blow 
against it. There are in the entire levee system to-day 243,000,000 
yards of dirt, and it is estimated that to bring those levees up to a 
point where they would be safe from dangers of a crevasse would re¬ 
quire 200,000,000 more yards of dirt, the cost of which will be 
$57,000,000. That is not a matter of conjecture or speculation, but 
that is what the engineers say will give safety, and they have never 
made an erroneous or misleading statement since they have dealt 
with the river. 

As for what this amount of dirt can be put there will depend simply 
upon the question of the rate at which you can get contractors to do 


348 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


the work. That is exclusive of revetment. On the revetment ques¬ 
tion they estimate that it will cost $3,000,000 a year to carry on 
continuously a revetment system which will protect the exposed 
levees along the Mississippi River. That is not counted in the levee 
building any more than the $20,000,000 Congress is going to expend 
on the Missouri River for revetment and as to which no dollar is 
asked from any locality. It is a part of the treatment of the river 
necessary to afford any kind of navigation on that river. 

Mr. Taylor. You hold that revetment is a necessary concomitant 
of navigation? 

Mr. Percy. So the engineers have said. They say that to afford 
any stability to the channel of the river you must necessarily revet 
the banks of that river, and that is the proposition upon which Con¬ 
gress appropriates $20,000,000 for revetting on the Missouri River. 
The high water of 1912 washed away 2,500,000 cubic yards of our 
levees. Col. Townsend, in round numbers, reports that 4,500,000 
cubic yards cave in annually in caving banks, and you must revet 
those banks in order to give any sort of stability to your levee system. 

Now, the question has been asked, How do you get at this basis of 
contribution ? How have the authors of this bill arrived at the con¬ 
tribution of three to one on the part of the Government as an equi¬ 
table contribution? I will tell you, Mr. Chairman, how they have 
arrived at it. It has not been what the Government should contrib¬ 
ute. The} 7 have arrived at it by figuring what is the heaviest burden 
of taxation that these localities can stagger under, and in this bill 
they have imposed to the last pound all that they believe these dis¬ 
tricts can live under. That is how they have gotten at it. It was 
not because they thought it was equitable, but because they hoped 
by that willingness to bear that onerous burden of taxation that the 
pitiable condition of these people might commend them to the favor¬ 
able consideration of the National Government, and they have gone 
to the last notch on it. The floods of 1912 and 1913 literally pros¬ 
trated the local boards, and only when the Government says to those 
districts that we are going to take hold of it in this way will they be 
able to float the bonds necessary to enable them to meet their part of 
this contribution. If they had to raise $15,000,000 in five years 
without Government aid, the task would be absolutely hopeless. 
They could not turn a wheel; they could not move a foot in that 
direction. 

The Chairman. May I ask what period of years it would require 
to raise that? 

Mr. Percy. The period of years is hard to define, Mr. Chairman, 
because that brings up this other question, Why should this work 
be done within a limited time? It is necessary to do it in a limited 
time, if you are going to do it at all. Congress can go along here 
doling out justice or charity—as it may deem it to be—in levee build¬ 
ing at the rate of $4,000,000 a year for 100 years, and you will never 
have a perfect levee system [applause], because that money goes right 
straight along not in strengthening your levees, but the major part 
of it goes to repairing the crevasses, which by your own dilatory 
business methods you have courted and invited. In the appropria¬ 
tions. bill of 1912, $6,000,000—$6,000,000 for the river and $4,000,000 
of it for levees—more than half of that did not go to levee building; 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 349 

* 

it just went to plugging up holes made by the waters of 1912, and by 
the caving banks of the Mississippi River. 

The Chairman. I had got the impression, until I heard your 
statement a bit ago, that in the later years of levee building there, 
that all of it had been done under the supervision of the engineers 
of the Mississippi River Commission, and pursuant to plans and 
specifications laid down by them. 

Mr. Percy. It has been done, pursuant to the plans and specifica¬ 
tions laid down, as far as the revenues could meet those plans and 
specifications. 

The Chairman. In other words, I thought when the money was 
furnished by the Government and by the leveee districts there, that 
it was all expended under plans furnished by the engineering board, 
or, rather, by the Mississippi River Commission, which means the 
engineers. 

Mr. Percy. That is true; the engineers do the work practically in 
accordance with the suggestions of the Mississippi River Com¬ 
mission. 

The Chairman. I got the impression from your remarks that it 
was brought about in a haphazard, slipshod way. 

Mr. Percy. The haphazard, happy-go-lucky feature of it—what I 
mean by that is that when the engineers say, “ Here you have 100 
miles of levee upon which you should expend $100,000,000, and you 
have got revenues amounting to $50,000,000, that is a pretty hap¬ 
hazard way, where you are distributing that $50,000,000 over your 
100 miles of levee.” 

Mr. Taylor. You mean that the haphazard business is in the ap¬ 
propriation, not in the execution of the work? 

Mr. Percy. The haphazard way is in the appropriation and not 
in the execution, only to the extent of the meagerness of the appro¬ 
priation. You have got to do the work in a limited time in order 
to reach protection before your work is destroyed by the recurring 
floods. These districts, if enjoying some kind of protection, could go 
on with the most onerous taxation, but not beyond the point where 
they could float bonds; they could raise, by the most onerous taxa¬ 
tion, two, three, or four million dollars, but it is like rolling a bar¬ 
rel up hill; you get nowhere. That is what we have been doing. 
We have been taxing ourselves to the point of financial bankruptcy 
without ever getting protection, because you have got to spend your 
money just as fast as you can find men to put your dirt on your 
levees. That is the only limitation, in order to get your levees up to 
where they will give you protection before, in their incomplete condi¬ 
tion, they are overtopped by a flood, breached, and washed away. 
The question here is whether you are going to do this work wisely, 
or whether you are going to do it stupidly. That is the whole ques¬ 
tion. Mr. Chairman, you, in the 1910 Congress, undertook to spend 
$80,000,000 on the Mississippi River through a period of 20 years. 

The Chairman. $90,000,000. 

Mr. Percy. $90,000,000. We all recognize, every one of you gen¬ 
tlemen know, that plan was an unwise one; that it was a foolish 
plan. During every year of that 20 years you were courting dis¬ 
aster. During some years you would inevitably have floods which, 
in the unfinished condition of your levees, would destroy work that 
you had already done. If a man with ample means should undertake 

30573°—H. Rep. 300, 63-2, pt 2-23 


350 FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

to build a 20-story house and should build one story of it a year, be¬ 
fore he reached the fifth story his relatives would have him in the 
asylum; and yet he would be a Solomon compared to the wisdom that 
our Government has been exercising in this levee building, because 
when he went back at the end of a year he would find his property 
more or less damaged by the elements, but intact; but we go back at 
the end of one year or two years or three years and we find the work 
we have done absolutely swept away, and the future appropriations 
for the next year go to replacing, not to strengthening the work 
you have done. And year by year finds you in the same helpless 
condition, dependent upon the kindness of an Almighty Providence, 
not upon your own work as to whether you are going to have the 
accumulations of years swept away by the floods. 

The Chairman. That criticism can be made of a great deal of 
work that the Government is doing, river and harbor work. 

Mr. Percy. It is not in the nature of a criticism. It is in the nature 
of a confession. I know that every member of the committee here 
of course realizes the conditions which more or less caused it, but it 
pertains more to this individual project than to any other project 
which comes before this committee. You take the harbor project of 
the Member from Alabama, and what is done in one year, there is 
some remnant of it, usually it is all intact the next year. If the floods 
come, you lose your work, but not only do you lose your work, but 
you absolutely destroy your allies in that work, for the local boards 
year by year have contributed more than the Government has, and 
you bankrupt them by not expending the money which you are going 
to expend within a time which will give protection. The main 
feature of this bill- 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. There is nothing new about it for 
the last two years—Congress has appropriated $4,000,000 a year for 
the last two years. 

The Chairman. $6,000,000. 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. For levees, and $6,000,000 for the 
lower Mississippi River; not $10,000,000, four and six. 

The Chairman. $6,000,000 for the lower Mississippi ? 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. $4,000,000 of it for levees. 

Mr. Percy. But what you want is to continue the scheme, so that 
your engineers can do what you are going to do next year; so they 
can shape the plans so that these local boards can be given a credit 
which will enable them to go out and float their bonds and help you 
to do this work. It takes a large amount of money to organize a 
levee force for a contractor, and the competitors in that field are 
necessarily few, but you say to your Government engineers that we 
are going to expend $60,000,000 during the next five years; and that 
is advertised throughout the United States, and you have competitors 
from every quarter in this levee building. You have an organized 
scheme projected in an intelligent manner, with always the hope 
that no abnormal flood will interrupt it within that short time. If 
you could do it within one year it would of course be that much better. 
You want to put the dirt there just as fast as men can put it there in 
an economical, efficient manner, and there is not any other system 
consonant with reason if you are going to do it at all. That covers, 
I believe, most of the points which occur to me in connection with this. 



FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 351 

Mr. Taylor. Let me ask you a question about something which I 
gathered from your statement this morning about 12,500,000 acres of 
land that is to be affected beyond the 3,500,000 that you have now got 
in condition. To whom does that 12,500,000 acres belong? 

Mr. Percy. Practically every acre of that land belongs to indi¬ 
viduals. 

Mr. Taylor. Who have contributed to the $67,000,000 you spoke of 
that has been contributed—have the owners of that 12,500,000 acres 
or the owners of the 3,500,000 acres ? 

Mr. Percy. Every present owner of land in the valley has con¬ 
tributed, and all the thousands of owners that have been driven 
bankrupt from their homes by the floods of the Mississippi in the 
past have contributed. 

Mr. Taylor. And the owners of all this land are to-day contrib¬ 
uting to this fund, are they ? 

Mr. Percy. Yes; they are contributing in proportion to the value 
of the lands and what they produce upon these lands, and in the 
aggregate it goes to the levee district and that serves to build up the 
credit of the district, and on that is predicated the ability of the levee 
district to float bonds for levee work. 

Mr. Taylor. The prospective cost, as I understand you, to bring 
these lands into cultivation is $50 an acre? 

Mr. Percy. That is a minimum cost for what I am calling a 
proper system of cultivation. Every acre of that land, as it stands 
now\ represents an expenditure of $50, but in addition to that there 
are tremendous drainage schemes being carried on to further perfect 
that cultivation, which will impose an average tax of $10 an acre on 
that land. To give you just an idea of the extent of that kind of 
work to which these people are committed, in my county of 520,000 
acres there are four drainage districts being formed, embracing 
490,000 acres of land, and the average tax will be $7 an acre on that 
land for drainage alone. Of course that work is absolutely idle and 
futile unless there is protection. 

Mr. Taylor. That estimate you are making now of $50 an acre I 
understand is* a minimum; is what has to be done after this levee is 
done of which you speak. 

Mr. Percy. After the levee work is done. 

Mr. Taylor. In order to utilize those lands? 

Mr. Percy. As I say, it is just exactly like you would give people 
who are going into a wilderness immunity from the hostile Indians. 
You simply give them the right to conquer, if they have the manhood 
to do it—to conquer the wilderness—and they have got to work out 
their own salvation. The Government waves no magic wand by 
which the wilderness in itself is converted into a garden. That seems 
to me, gentlemen, to cover the main points and about the cardinal fea¬ 
tures of it. About the expense to which these districts can contribute, 
about whether theirs is a fair burden or not, it is not conjectural at 
all. The burden imposed is just as great a burden as they can bear. 
There is not any way they could raise a greater amount by taxation, 
only with the knowledge that the Government was going to take hold 
of these levees, and with the credit thereby given will they be able to 
raise the contributions provided under this bill. 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. When we had the conference of 
all those who were interested and contributed to the drawing of this 


352 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


bill, that in fact was exactly what we discussed when we determined 
how much contribution to ask, was it not? 

Mr. Percy. Absolutely. 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. How much can we squeeze out of 
these districts? 

Mr. Percy. And the only criticism that is heard along the Missis¬ 
sippi River to this bill, from some quarters, is that if it passes, what 
good will it do us ? We will never be able to raise our pro rata. 

Mr. Taylor. Is this pro rata raised about on the lines of the famil¬ 
iar term which the railroads use, “ What the traffic will bear ”? 

Mr. Percy. Just what the traffic will bear. Just what the weary 
taxpayer can put up. 

Mr. Kettner. I should like to ask one question. I am a little con¬ 
fused about this matter. You stated this morning that this 12,500,000 
acres of land was worth about $12.50 an acre at the present time ? 

Mr. Percy. I said an average of $5 an acre. 

Mr. Kettner. You also just stated that the land had cost about 
$50 an acre? 

Mr. Percy. That is the cleared land; that is the cost; it cost $50 
an acre to convert this land from forest land into farm land, even 
with protection assured. 

Mr. Kettner. But the land at the present time is worth about $5 
an acre? 

Mr. Percy. About $5 an acre, all over. In some sections at the 
upper part of the Delta, where a greater density of population exists 
and where there is a greater feeling of security in regard to over¬ 
flows, cut-over land is probably worth as high as $15 an acre. In my 
district, which is one of the oldest districts and one of the most 
wealthy, too, cut-over land is worth an average of $10 an acre, and 
in Louisiana it goes as low as 50 cents an acre, but the average value, 
I should say, would be $5 an acre. 

The Chairman. What class of lands go down as low as 50 cents an 
acre ? 

Mr. Percy. They are lands that are habitually overflowed and 
where the danger of overflow is so great that they have no farm 
value. You see, there has to be a comparative feeling of security to 
induce a man to go into a forest and attempt to convert it into a farm. 

The Chairman. That is the minimum, 50 cents an acre? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. What would be the maximum value of land sub¬ 
ject to overflow ? 

Mr. Percy. The maximum value of lands, outside of timber value, 
and a great deal of which has no timber value for the reason that it 
has been stripped of its timber, is $15 an acre. 

The Chairman. The maximum value? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. Of all that waste land ? 

Mr. Percy. Of all the lands uncleared. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. Subject of overflow? 

Mr. Percy. No; not subject to overflow. I am speaking, as an 
illustration, of lands in my own county, which at one time was the 
largest cotton-producing county in the world, and which is an old 
county and where lands have real value, and the cleared land in that 
county is worth on an average $50 an acre, and the uncleared land of 
that county is worth, at a maximum, $15 an acre. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


353 


The Chairman. When these levees are built high enough to protect 
these lands from overflow, would they still be worth only $15 an acre ? 

Mr. Percy. I can not say that. They will not be worth a great 
deal more than that, Mr. Chairman, for this reason: The man who 
buys land at $15 an acre knows he has got to expend $50 an acre in 
getting that land into a productive condition. That represents, then, 
an outlay of $65 an acre, and when with protection from overflow he 
has got to wait for some influx of population or capital before it will 
be worth more than $65 an acre, and he has put in his labor and his 
time there. 

The Chairman. At some of our hearings I have heard it stated that 
the value of some of that land went up as high as $50 an acre, and I 
think as high as $100 an acre. 

Mr. Percy. That is cleared land in a high state of cultivation, 
enjoying what they believed to be absolute protection from overflow. 
I will say another thing about that. That is in a levee district 
recently formed. l$y recently, I mean within the past 20 years, and 
that value is based upon the productiveness of the land. The fertility 
of that land has allured people to it just like gold in the mountains. 
The valley is like dead man’s gulch, it is filled with dead hopes and 
wrecked ambition, and the fertility just allures them there, and year 
after year floods come and the accumulation of low-water years all 
are swept away and they start over again with a hopefulness which 
you would think born of idiocy, but which is born of trust in the 
Government. 

Mr. Powers. Not taking into account the money raised by local 
tax in Louisiana, how much money has been paid by the State 
toward this levee district? 

Mr. Percy. Mississippi did not pay a dollar. 

Mr. Powers. My inquiry was in regard to Louisiana. 

Mr. Percy. One mill. 

Mr. Powers. What amount of money does that amount to ? 

Mr. Percy. As Mr. Humphreys said, the authors of this bill, when 
they framed it, just took the different districts, saw what the 
area was, saw what the bonded debt was, saw what the rate of taxa¬ 
tion was, and then estimated what was the greatest amount of reve¬ 
nue they could raise in the five years by any system of taxation they 
could devise, and on that they based the proportion the district is 
going to bear. 

Mr. Taylor. Leaving that estimate, then, of one-third, you have 
taken into consideration the reasonably prospective profits to the 
parties interested? 

Mr. Percy. Yes, sir; and we have taken into consideration what 
we believe to be the credit that those districts will get by the fact 
that the Government is going in there, because by that means alone 
could we hope to raise that contribution, which is one-fourth of the 
total. 

Mr. Booher. How many years will it take to complete that levee 

system down there ? .... 

" Mr. Percy. It will be completed in five years, and the proposition 
is this, that when completed it is a complete levee system, and the 
duty of maintenance will forever rest upon those people in there. 


354 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


Mr. Booher. Suppose we adopt the project of completing it in 10 
years, what objection is there to that? 

Mr. Percy. You render the completion of it infinitely precarious, 
because by spreading it over 10 years in all probability you would 
again and again lose the money you would have invested in it in 
previous years. 

Mr. Booher. Yes; there is some danger of that; there is some dan¬ 
ger of that on the other proposition, but if the engineers knew they 
were going to have that money in 10 years, say, to complete that 
work, they could then work in a more intelligent manner than now, 
and there would not be nearly so much waste as now, would there ? 

Mr. Percy. It would be an improvement upon the present plan, un¬ 
doubtedly. 

The Chairman. That is what we are doing at present, is it not, 
Senator ? 

Mr. Percy. Yes. You have been allowing for the past two years 
about $4,000,000 for levees, a total of $6,000,000. 

Mr. Booher. But we have not said in any bill that I remember 
that we would complete that project in a certain time, or adopt the 
project. Now, suppose we say we will appropriate the money in 10 
years to complete the levee system there, as the engineers say can be 
done, then the engineers, knowing that to be a fact, can they not go 
on with the work in a more intelligent manner and do this work 
and do it in 10 years and protect these people ? 

Mr. Percy. It would be the same question; the same plan Congress 
had in 1910. They said that they would complete it in 20 years. 
Of course, every year that you postpone it makes it that much more 
hazardous and makes the amount of money required so much greater. 

Mr. Booher. What would be the effect on your bonds? 

Mr. Percy. The effect on the bonds would be that it would not 
give the districts that financial standing which would enable them to 
float bonds to meet that part, because the whole financial world 
would know that during the 10 years their resources were liable to be 
crippled by recurring floods. 

Mr. Booher. That would only be in a degree greater than in the 
5-year period, because in the 5 years you may have two or more 
floods, and you may not have any more than in the 10 years? 

Mr. Percy. That is possible. You just simply run the greater 
danger. That is the difference. 

I am obliged to the members of the committee, and we will close 
here, at such time as the committee may designate, with Col. 
Townsend. 

The Chairman. Senator, we have been very glad to hear from 
jmu. [Applause.] 


statement or col. c. m’d. townsend, colonel, corps of engineers, 

PRESIDENT OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER COMMISSION. 

Col. Townsend. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, 
I desire to correct an impression which seems to prevail that I am 
appearing here in any way as an advocate of any measure that is 
before you. I am here to give you such information as you may 
desire. I was called upon, however, a few days ago by" Senator 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


355 


Ransdell to address a convention in New Orleans, and before that con¬ 
vention I explained what the commission was doing and what it pro¬ 
posed to do, and I think that that explanation would facilitate mat¬ 
ters in your questioning me, and with your permission I will read 
the remarks I then made. [Reading:] 

It is not my purpose to appear before you as the advocate or opponent of any 
bill which is being considered by Congress, but I believe that the people have 
always a right to demand from an executive officer an account of his steward¬ 
ship, and that you are entitled to a frank statement from its president of what 
the Mississippi River Commission has done and what it proposes to do, no mat¬ 
ter what its bearing on proposed legislation. 

During the 30 years work on the Mississippi River has been under the direc¬ 
tion of the Mississippi River Commission there has been a marked improve¬ 
ment in its navigable channel, While in former years pilots complained of 
depths of 4 \ feet on its bars, and I can personally recall a case where the 
river was so obstructed at Presidents Island, below Memphis, that vessels 
drawing 3* feet went aground, during the past low-water season, for a distance 
of over 275 miles from its mouth there was a channel of over 30 feet depth, 
which was buoyed and lighted so that steamships loaded above Baton Rouge to 
the draft they could carry over the bar at the mouth. For a further distance 
of 800 miles there was a depth of not less than 9 feet, which vessels could navi¬ 
gate night and day, unless stopped by fog; and for the 190 miles between Cairo 
and St. Louis there was a channel depth of not less than 7 feet, not only shown 
by lights and day beacons, but, wherever the channel was narrow, further 
marked by buoys. Moreover, the depth of 7 feet only existed for a few T days 
on two bars, which were deepened to the project depth of 8 feet as soon as 
dredges could be towed to the locality. 

It may surprise you to learn that such depths exceed those found at low water 
on any river in the civilized world, except the St. Lawrence system, where, due 
to the Great Lakes and the canalization of the channels connecting them, 14 
feet has been obtained to Lake Erie and over 21 feet thence to Lake Superior 
and Lake Michigan. 

For the far-famed Rhine, carrying a commerce of over 50,000,000 tons, a chan¬ 
nel depth has been adopted of 3 meters (less than 10 feet) at mean low water 
on its lower reaches and of 2 meters between Bingen and Goar. 

Moreover, the channel in the Mississippi River is being maintained at a cost 
not exceeding one-third of that expended per mile for maintenance by the 
average railroad in the United States, and affords a very cheap means of trans¬ 
portation. 

Coal is towed from Cairo to New Orleans at the rate of 0.3 mills per ton-mile, 
which is the price charged for coal transported on the Great Lakes as a return 
cargo; cheaper rates are only offered for ocean transportation over long dis¬ 
tances in vessels of deep draft. 

But while in many parts of the United States commercial advancement is so 
rapid that the General Government has difficulty in developing navigation facili¬ 
ties as fast as they are required, along the Mississippi the utilization of the river 
channel has not kept pace with the increased depths obtained. The reasons 
are obvious. The surrounding country is sparsely settled, there being but one 
city of over 25,000 population between St. Louis and New Orleans, a distance 
of over 1,100 miles, and but eight towns exceeding 5,000. These communities are 
not natural manufacturing centers. There is no coal, iron ore, or other mineral 
wealth along its banks, and even the logs and lumber, which were formerly large 
items of commerce, are rapidly disappearing. The commerce derived from its 
banks is, therefore, largely confined to the products of agriculture, and such 
supplies as are necessary to sustain an agricultural community, and can never 
become very extensive, as the railroads will carry all farm products that are 
not produced in close proximity to the river. It is popular to-day to assail rail¬ 
roads as the foes of river transportation, but, in my judgment, the wagon road 
is the greater offender. With such roads as exist in the Delta, a long haul of 
agricultural products by wagon rapidly absorbs the profits of farming, and if the 
railroads did not exist there would be only a comparatively narrow strip of 
land along the rivers that could be profitably cultivated, and the interior of the 
basins would remain undeveloped. 

If the Mississippi River is ever to become a great transportation route, other 
sources than those at present existing along its banks must create its commerce. 


356 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


MUST DEVELOP COMMERCE. 

Over 100,000,000 tons of freight annually passes through Pittsburgh, much of 
which is of a character which seeks cheap water transportation. The Ohio 
Valley is teeming with factories whose products naturally would move down a 
river. The flour of Minneapolis and the grain of the Northwest are demanding 
cheaper transportation; and it is from these sources that we must seek the com¬ 
merce that will justify a further development of the main stream. 

It is folly to expend hundreds of millions of dollars in creating a deep chan¬ 
nel in the lower Mississippi River so long as boats navigating the tributaries 
can not utilize existing depths. During the past low-water season there were 
few tributaries of the river which had a navigable depth of 4 feet, and its 
commerce was practically suspended, not for lack of depth in its channel, but 
because there was no source from which freight could be derived. 

If a 24-foot waterway existed from St. Louis to the Gulf, the entire commerce 
of the city of St. Louis that is at present seeking water transportation could 
be carried in a single large lake freighter. 

We are maintaining a sufficient depth of channel for the existing navigation, 
and the problem of the Mississippi River which demands immediate attention 
is one of flood protection. 

When the Mississippi River Commission assumed charge of the river, a 
flood having a discharge of 1,100,000 second-feet created disaster throughout the 
entire Delta, but there has been constructed a levee line which can now success¬ 
fully restrain a flood of 1,750,000 second-feet at the head of the levee system, 
and one of over 1.400.000 second-feet at New Orleans. 

The maximum discharge of the floods of 1912 and 1913 was about 2,000,000 
second-feet. A simple direct solution of the problem is to increase the size of 
the levees until they can safely pass 250,000 second-feet more than they do at 
present. The estimated cost of such an enlargement of the levee system is 
about $60,000,000, less than $4 for every acre of land protected. When levees 
of these dimensions are constructed we can not afford to permit them to be 
destroyed, and it will therefore be necessary to protect the river banks 
wherever caving threatens their destruction. For this purpose an appropria¬ 
tion of from $2,000,000 to $4,000,000 annually will be necessary. The revet¬ 
ment of banks will, however, react on the river channel, tending to prevent the 
immense deposits which are now formed from the material which is precipitated 
into it as its banks cave and will thus gradually prepare the river for increased 
depths, should they be required as the population increases or commerce de¬ 
velops. This solution involves no new theories of river hydraulics, and has 
the advantage that it has been thoroughly tested on foreign streams, and has 
been successful. 

But Job’s comforter appears and bemoans the fact that a levee that was 
built to resist a discharge of 1,500.000 second-feet, is overtopped when a flood 
of 2,000,000 occurs. This is to him ample proof that a levee system is a failure, 
and that further investigation is necessary so that the subject can be treated 
in a scientific manner. 

I have at other times pointed out the difficulties which surround the con¬ 
trolling of the floods of the Mississippi River by methods other than by building 
levees, and have summarized them as follows: 

1. Reforestation .—While forests may have some influence on a river during 
midstages, they produce little effect either during extreme floods or extreme low 
water. It takes too long a time for trees to grow and the humus to form under 
them for reforestation to be a practical solution of flood prevention in the 
Mississippi Basin. It would also require the abandonment of too much land 
needed for agricultural purposes. 

2. Reservoirs .—In a mountainous country, where short high dams can create 
reservoirs of great depth and volume, or in a comparatively level country where 
low dams can form lakes of large area, it may be practicable to control floods by 
means of reservoirs. There is but a comparatively small section of the Missis¬ 
sippi Basin that fulfills either of these conditions, and in such areas the rain¬ 
fall is generally light. The rolling country, which forms the greater part of 
the Mississippi Valley and from which the water that produces its floods is 
derived, can be protected from floods by reservoirs only by an enormous 
expenditure. 

3. Cutoffs— By cutting off the bends in a river, its length is diminished and 
slope increased. This would increase its discharge at a given height. This 
method of relief can not be applied to the Mississippi River, as it would 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI KIVER. 


357 


seriously injure its navigability during low water and increase the caving of 
its banks, which is now excessive. While it would afford relief in the upper 
portions of the section of the river thus straightened, it would increase flood 
heights at the lower end, benefiting one locality at the expense of another. 

4. Outlets. —Outlets, while locally reducing flood heights, have only limited 
application as a means of relief from Mississippi floods. They can not be con¬ 
structed above the mouth of Red River; their influence on flood heights extends 
only a comparatively short distance above the locality where they are con¬ 
structed ; there is a tendency for the river to diminish its area of cross section 
below them; they have to be protected by levees of the same dimensions as the 
river itself, and there is danger, if the outlet is made sufficiently large to be of 
practical value, that the river may abandon its present channel and adopt that 
of the outlet. 

5. Diversion of flood waters into channels parallel to the main river. —The 
maximum flood discharge of the Mississippi River exceeds 2,000,000 second-feet, 
while it discharges about 1,000,000 second-feet at a bank-full stage. A side 
channel which would discharge the excess flood waters would therefore require 
an area of cross section equal to that of the river itself at bank-full stage, and 
with the same characteristics as to depth and velocity. 

6. Levees. —Levees afford the only practicable means of preventing the dam¬ 
ages which might be caused by floods in the lower Mississippi Valley. They 
have been successfully employed on European rivers, and are the only means of 
flood protection of large rivers that have been tested, or, if tested, have not 
failed. To restrain floods like those of 1912 and 1913 will require in the existing 
levee line about twice the yardage now in place. 

A scientific investigation of all the problems of river hydraulics and their 
proper coordination may be exceedingly desirable, but to make such an investi¬ 
gation necessitates an accurate survey, and such surveys cost money and require 
considerable time for their execution. The survey of Austria cost $400 per 
square mile, that of Great Britain $186, and of Germany $79. The survey of 
the Mississippi River by the Mississippi River Commission exceeded $50 per 
square mile, and has been in progress over 30 years. It is none too accurate for 
the solution of all the problems in hydraulics which can arise on a river, and if 
such a survey were extended over the entire United States it would cost over 
$180,000,000. It is also very questionable if there are enough surveyors in the 
country to complete such a work in 10 years. 

This meeting appears to be a fitting occasion to emphasize the fact that if Con¬ 
gress will appropriate the requisite funds the Mississippi River Commission can 
construct a levee line which will give adequate protection to the Mississippi 
Valley before any body of experts can collect the data necessary to even prepare 
an intelligent report on a scientific coordination of the hydraulic problems which 
arise in the rivers of the United States. 

The Chairman. Let me ask you, how far does this 10 feet on the 
Khine go? 

Col. Townsend. It is divided into three sections. The lower sec¬ 
tion is 3 meters, the next 2^, and the upper portion is 2 meters, but 
the exact division I do not know. The upper regions have a depth 
of 6 feet. 

(Thereupon the committee took a recess until 2 o’clock p. m.) 

AFTER RECESS. 

Continuation of Statement of Col. C. McD. Townsend. 

The Chairman. Colonel, what do you consider will be the cost of 
this entire levee system when the absolute necessities are met? 

Col. Townsend. Our estimate of the cost of the levee system is be¬ 
tween $57,000,000 and $58,000,000; but, as I have stated when that 
levee system is built it will require from $2,000,000 to $4,000,000 a 
year for maintenance to keep it from caving into the river, and this 
will be an expenditure which will extend for at least 25 or 30 years. 


358 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


The Chairman. When you speak of maintenance you mean re¬ 
vetment work, do you not ? 

Col. Townsend. I mean revetment work which will be required to 
hold these large levees which we are building. 

The Chairman. That is, of course, the kind of work you are carry¬ 
ing on now and have been carrying on for a great many years ? 

Col. Townsend. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. It is the same project that we adopted, at least 
the work is embraced in the same project, that we adopted in 1910? 

Col. Townsend. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. Which was to cost $90,000,000 ? 

Col. Townsend. I do not recall. There have been a number of 
estimates of the cost of revetment on the Mississippi River, which 
have been submitted to various committees of Congress and there has 
been one, as I remember it, of $90,000,000 for revetting such banks as 
are necessary in the interests of navigation to the mouth of the Red 
River, the assumption being that below the mouth of the Red River 
the river was in so good a condition that its improvement was not 
necessary. There have been estimates submitted as to the cost of 
revetting every caving bank on the ri ver, and my impression is that 
ran up to some $165,000,000. This estimate which I have submitted 
is for holding the levee line, as it is being attacked by caving banks, 
not attempting to prevent the caving unless it seriously menaces the 
levees. Incidentally such a method of treating the river would lead 
gradually to its revetment, but the revetment would be subsidiary to 
the levee system, but in the process of 25 or 30 years would react on 
the low water channel and increase its depth by preventing the enor¬ 
mous deposit in the river which takes place now from caving banks. 

The Chairman. Of course, the purpose of revetting the banks is to 
prevent erosion, for whatever purpose it may be, whatever has been 
the ultimate purpose, whether it was to serve navigation or to pre¬ 
vent the levees from falling in. Now, the project upon which we are 
now working, Colonel, when completed, would that embrace more or 
less than the maintenance that you speak of to protect the entire 
levee system for which the Government is asked to be responsible? 

Col. Townsend. Will you please repeat your question ? 

The Chairman. You speak of it being necessary for maintenance 
to expend $2,000,000 to $4,000,000 in the matter of revetment each 
year. I want to know whether the project upon which we are now 
working would more than take care of all that, or whether there 
would be something in addition required? 

Co]. Townsend. No; the project upon which we are now working 
would ultimately protect the levee line, but we shall practically be 
forced, under the project we are now working, to do just exactly what 
I propose. There is so much caving going on that we will be forced 
to select those portions of the river for protection under any project 
for obtaining a deep channel where levees are threatened, because 
incidentally we would protect our levee as well as deepen our channel, 
and for many years the two projects would absolutely coincide. 

The Chairman. The reason I am asking the question is that there 
is a report here—I think it is dated the 12th of March of last year— 
in which the cost of the entire revetmeut system for the lower Mis¬ 
sissippi is fixed at $157,800,000. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 359 

Col. Townsend. That is the one I said I thought was $165,000,000. 
That is correct. 

The Chairman. The project upon which you are now working, 
supposedly to cost only $90,000,000, do I understand you to say, would 
or would not complete the work needed to protect the levee system, 
or would it go to $157,000,000? 

Col. Townsend. No; the project which I mentioned would not 
include as much work as is mentioned there of $157,000,000. That 
$157,000,000 includes, as I remember, the revetment of all caving 
banks on the river that then existed. If you will just permit me to 
see it [paper handed to witness]. “The said commission shall prepare 
a statement as to localities and revetment required for the complete 
treatment of the river below Cairo and estimate the cost thereof and 
report the same to Congress.” That was a complete treatment; that 
contemplated the complete revetment that would be required for 
maintaining navigation and protecting levees. It would include two 
items—all the banks that would be necessary to be protected for the 
purposes of navigation, as well as for the protection of levees. 

The Chairman. How much of that $157,000,000 would be necessary 
revetment to protect the levee system which you are speaking of ? 

Col. Townsend. I should say from $75,000,000 to $80,000,000 will 
ultimately be required for the protection of the levee system. 

The Chairman. About one-half of the amount? 

Col. Townsend. About one-half the $157,000,000 ? 

Mr. Humphreys. Over a period of 25 or 30 years? 

Col. Townsend. Over a period of 25 to 30 years. 

The Chairman. Your suggestion is that in case we were to pass 
this bill it would be to discontinue our method of appropriation—in 
other words, lay aside the projects we have been working on wherein 
we expected to revet the banks in a period now of, say, 16 years—and 
let the engineers do the work as they see proper to do it in order to 
protect the levee system? 

Col. Townsend. Yes, sir; we would first build our levees, and then 
protect those levees as they were endangered by caving banks. 

The Chairman. I think you stated a year ago, when you were with 
us, that you could not do more revetment work than about $1,500,000 
or $2,000,000 a year ? 

Col. Townsend. Our present plant would be limited to about 
$2,000,000 a year. It would require an extension of our plant to 
expend a greater amount. 

The Chairman. But you could do any amount of levee building? 

Col. Townsend. Of levee building; yes, sir. 

The Chairman. Your only limitation being the amount of money 
you have? 

Col. Townsend. Yes. 

The Chairman. Are you quite sure, Colonel, that $60,000,000 
would cover all this levee building that you are suggesting, or that 
is suggested in this bill? 

Col.. Townsend. $60,000,000 will cover the existing levee line, it 
projected to a grade which would control a flood of 2,000,000 second- 
feet. Any extension of the levee line, adding to the duties of the 
commission, by taking in districts which are not now leveed, would 
be in addition thereto. 


360 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. This present project contemplates 
the extension, however, of the line along the Yazoo Basin; that is 
included in the $60,000,000, is it not? 

Col. Townsend. The commission’s project ultimately contemplates 
the extension of the levee line from Eagle Lake down to the Yazoo 
River. It is recognized that as soon as we have funds and have given 
sufficient strength to the rest of the levee system, that we will extend 
that line. 

The Chairman. How many miles is contained in that system? 

Col. Townsend. Between 1,500 and 1,600. 

The Chairman. That is the work that is to be done with the 
$60,000,000? 

Col. Townsend. With the $60,000,000. 

The Chairman. How much is there beyond that, outside of that 
and in addition to it? 

Col. Townsend. There are numerous small levee districts which 
the commission has reported that it is not profitable to levee, which 
would amount to several hundred miles, which, if it is determined 
and we are directed to levee it- 

The Chairman. Speaking, Colonel, as you have spoken hereto¬ 
fore, of the additional amount of levee building that might be neces¬ 
sary in the future. I want to get at not only the extent of that, but 
your reasons for thinking there might be something in the future. 

Col. Townsend. We have leveed the large levee districts, and per¬ 
haps if I should explain it from the map you would get the clearest 
idea. [Indicating on map.] Take the St. Francis Basin, there is 
a large area of 6,000 square miles that is in a levee system. The 
St. Francis River takes the drainage of that entire area. We have 
leveed, and a portion of our project includes the leveeing of that 
basin. On this side, to the east, if you will notice, there are a 
number of little bits of basins which, in the opinion of the com¬ 
mission, it does not pay to levee. There is a little basin right in 
there [indicating] and another here, and so on. Their people are 
all appealing and will appeal to you for assistance. They will 
say their basins are entitled to be leveed. If you levee every one of 
those little basins, that will be in addition to the $60,000,000 which 
we estimate. We come to the Yazoo Basin. That is in a system 
which we have adopted, and we have a levee line running down to 
Eagle Lake, and that levee it is proposed to extend ultimately to the 
vicinity of Vicksburg. 

The Chairman. At the present price? 

Col. Townsend. At the present price. When you come down here 
[indicating] you find again a number of little bits of basins which, 
in the opinion of the commission, it would not pay to levee. The 
levees would cost more than the entire land is worth, but parties rep¬ 
resenting every one of those basins have appeared before you with a 
request for levee construction, and if their lands are leveed it will 
add, I will say, roughly, one-third to the mileage of the levee line, 
and those are not included in that $60,000,000. 

The Chairman. The system, as you have outlined it and as it is 
contemplated in this bill, then, is in your opinion sufficient to protect 
the integrity of the stream and, incidentally, protect the property ? 

Col. Townsend. It is sufficient to protect, of the 29,000 square miles, 
at least 22,000 square miles, from overflow. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 361 

The Chairman. That hardly answers my question. Colonel. I 
wanted to get your idea as to the efficiency and sufficiency of the 
proposed work, if we undertake it and it is completed, whether we 
will then be called upon to do some additional leveeing. 

Col. Townsend. You will be called upon-- 

The Chairman. Whether we will be required to do it? 

Col. Townsend. That will be a question of policy for you gentle¬ 
men to determine. The Mississippi River Commission has stated, in 
numerous reports, that these outlying districts would not pay to 
levee; that the cost of the levees was greater than the benefits which 
the communities would derive, and they have declined heretofore to 
expend any money on these small levee districts. 

The Chairman. What amounts do you consider would be equi¬ 
table and right for the Government to put up? What proportion of 
that work ? 

Col. Townsend. When this matter was suggested to me I stated 
that I thought one-half was the proper amount for the Government 
to put up. 

The Chairman. You stated that about a year ago when you were 
before the committee, did you not? 

Col. Townsend. That has always been my view. 

The Chairman. And we have been putting up about one-third, to 
date; in some places perhaps—I think you said 90 per cent; in others 
very small amounts, but the whole of it has aggregated about one- 
third of the entire amount that the levees have cost since the Gov¬ 
ernment began its activities along that line? 

Col. Townsend. No, sir; the Government has put up more than 
one-third since it began its activities. 

The Chairman. Is that true? 

Col. Townsend. The statements that have.been made to you of the 
expenditures by levee boards date back to long before the Govern¬ 
ment’s activities. I have not a subdivision so that I could state ex¬ 
actly on that. 

The Chairman. Could you furnish us with that ? 

Col. Townsend. I question whether I could, sir. The levee boards 
have submitted their statements of their total expenditures from the 
existence of their levee boards, and our statement is from the date of 
the existence of the Mississippi River Commission. 

The Chairman. About what proportion has the Government ex¬ 
pended since it began its levee work, since it began cooperating with 
the levee districts in the localities? 

Col. Townsend. I should have to look that matter up. It would 
require a considerable computation and going over of the records 
to make a subdivision different from these reports by the levee boards. 

The Chairman. It seems to me it would be rather easy. Colonel, 
'because you can easily get at the entire amount expended on the 
levees since- 

Col. Townsend. I can give you the amounts that have been ex¬ 
pended bv the Government. 

The Chairman. Can you not give the amounts expended through 
the agency of the Mississippi River Commission? 

Col. Townsend. I can give you the amounts expended by the Gov¬ 
ernment, but to tell you what these levee boards have expended 
I would’have to obtain my information from them, and their state- 


362 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


ments are usually based on a longer period than when the Govern¬ 
ment was in charge. 

The Chairman. I notice here a statement that the Government, 
when this report was made, had expended $24,573,000 and the State 
and local organizations had expended $58,000,000. 

Col. Townsend. That was when this report was made. 

The Chairman. Now, the $58,000,000 extended over a longer 
period ? 

Col. Townsend. That extended over a longer period than the Gov¬ 
ernment’s expenditure. 

The Chairman. Would it amount to as much as one-half? 

Col. Townsend. I should have to look that up to state positively. 
In later years in several districts we are expending more than the 
levee boards have, but to state with reference to all the levee districts 
I should have to make a pretty careful investigation before I could 
say positively. You see we do not know the prices that are charged 
though we have their statements as to the amount of yardage which 
they have put in each year. We do not know their overhead expen¬ 
ditures, interest on bonds, and a great many other items, so that I 
should not want to make any statement in reference to the expendi¬ 
tures. 

The Chairman. I understand that all the money now is turned 
over to the commission? 

Col. Townsend. No, sir. 

The Chairman. It is not? 

Col. Townsend. No, sir: the commission merely expends the Gov¬ 
ernment money that is appropriated- 

The Chairman. I will ask you, right there—I may be a little 
wrong, but I got the impression that the entire work was done on 
plans and specifications laid down by the Mississippi River Commis¬ 
sion. 

Col. Townsend. The work which is done under the plans of the 
Mississippi River Commission is that done by itself. Though the 
levee boards conform very generally to the plans of the Mississippi 
River Commission. I know of but one district where they do not, 
and that is Mr. Dabney’s district, where he has built a levee a good 
deal larger than the plans of the Mississippi River Commission call 
for, but I think that usually in the rest of the districts they generally 
build their levees in accordance with the plans of the Mississippi 
River Commission. 

The Chairman. I understand the levee in Mr. Dabney’s district is 
a very substantial levee? 

Col. Townsend. Yes; he has a very strong levee. 

The Chairman. What do you say as to the length of time this 
work should take ? I do not mean the shortest possible nor the longest 
time, but what would be the proper length of time over which to 
distribute and expend this $60,000,000? 

Col. Townsend. The only question limiting the time is the ques¬ 
tion of combination of contractors. If we press too strongly and 
get too much work for the contractors to do, they will raise the price, 
and that is the only limit I see in doing this work as rapidly as you 
desire to have it done. 

The Chairman. We are appropriating now—at least have been for 
the last two years—$6,000,000. I see the engineers have recom- 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 363 

mended $6,000,000 for the next bill. Suppose we continue that sys¬ 
tem, or, if this bill passes, suppose we should amend it so as to appro¬ 
priate or use about $6,000,000 a year; how would that affect the work 
and the economy of the work? 

Col. Townsend. If it was clearly understood by the contractors 
that there is a given sum, I do not care whether it is $4,000,000 or 
$6,000,000, or any sum that is going to be expended on levees for a 
series of years, we can get reasonable bids; but if we have irregular 
appropriations, and have one }^ear $2,000,000 and the next year 
$4,000,000, and then revert back to $2,000,000, we will not have the 
contractors on the work that are necessary to do the work and there 
will be a tendency to higher prices from that cause, but with a 
regular appropriation of any fixed sum I think the contractors of 
the United States would adjust themselves to it, and if they did not 
the Mississippi River Commission would employ means to obtain 
reasonable prices by doing it themselves. 

The Chairman. Colonel, would those localities, the levee districts, 
be prepared, in your judgment, to meet with the amount that would 
be required of them under any appropriation made by the Govern¬ 
ment ? 

Col. Townsend. Some of the levee districts would and some would 
not. 

The Chairman. What, then, would be the outcome of that? 

Col. Townsend. We would develop the districts that put up the 
money that was called for and work on the others would be deferred 
until they put up the requisite money, if such a bill passed. 

The Chairman. It seems to me that would be necessary if we 
adopted any such plan as the cooperative system. But would not 
that leave some of the work in rather a bad situation? Might not 
the work you would do, when completed, fail to protect the districts, 
and then would we not have this same trouble, loss of life and prop¬ 
erty, so that we would not have gone the whole distance by doing the 
work in that way? 

Col. Townsend. Any cooperative system is going to be exposed to 
that objection. There are certain levee districts that are very 
wealthy and could afford to do not only as much as the Government, 
but could do twice as much as the Government and would not be 
seriously strained. There are other levee districts which could not 
do one-half or one-fourth as much as the Government without it 
being a serious strain upon their resources. Now, those districts are 
not consecutive. There will be one district which is a strong district 
and immediately above it will be a weak district. They will be in 
different States, and in those localities there is going to be ex¬ 
perienced considerable difficulty in carrying it out. 

The Chairman. You heard the statements made here by two or 
three gentlemen as to the value of the lands along there. You have 
had some experience and observation as to that. What do you think 
of the estimates placed upon their values ? 

Col. Townsend. The value of land in the Delta has fluctuated most 
enormously since I have been connected with the Mississippi River 
Commission. Two years ago the value of land would be materially 
higher than it is to-day, and it is to-day materially higher than it 
was a year ago. There is a great deal of speculation in that land, 
and when a flood comes you can buy land very cheaply; then a few 


364 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


years of relief from floods, such as they had for a number of years 
before 1912, and the land immediately rises in value and, I think, 
perhaps goes beyond what it should bring. 

The Chairman. I know that is only your opinion, and no doubt 
the opinion and the honest views of the parties expressed here in 
their statements before us, but I had gotten the impression that the 
land, some of the lands there—at least a good many of them—w T ere 
possibly more valuable than some of the parties here thought 
yesterday. 

Col. Townsend. I have before me here a statement of some of 
the residents themselves as to the value of lands—I will see if I can 
find it—in claims against the Government. With reference to 
levying these small levee districts, there was submitted to the com¬ 
mittee on levees for the Mississippi certain claims in various counties, 
and I will read you these claims so that you will know just what their 
statements were. In Wilkinson County, in the State of Mississippi, 
there were 11,078 acres. Their estimated value was $391,660. In 
Jefferson County- 

The Chairman. What would that be per acre ? 

Col. Townsend. Somewhere about $35 an acre. In Jefferson 
County there were 2,110 acres at $45,000. That would be $22 an 
acre. In Adams County there were 24,680 acres at $850,592 and in 
Warren County there was 26,368 acres at $1,217,108, or a total of 
64,136 acres at $2,504,360. 

The Chairman. Is it always a question of opinion? People may 
have wide differences about it. Even in the city, real estate men 
greatly differ. 

Mr. Townsend. The Mississippi River Commission submitted a re¬ 
port on the value of that same property, and its opinion was that 
land was not worth over $10 an acre. 

The Chairman. You say the Mississippi River Commission? 

Mr. Townsend. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. That estimate is of the value of 
the land as it is now ? 

Mr. Townsend. These are the values claimed by the owners, when 
they thought they would be recompensed by the United States for 
the damage done by the flooding of that land by the construction of 
levees on the opposite side. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. It practically destroyed the land? 

Mr. Toavnsend. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. Just before you leave that: This 
land that you speak of in Wilkinson and Adams and Jefferson and 
Warren Counties, Mississippi, they were plantations which had been 
in cultivation for many years, even before the Civil War, and were 
in a high state of cultivation ? 

Mr. Townsend. I think so. 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. That is not the land in the great 
deltas there that was never put in cultivation—cut-over lands? 

Mr. Townsend. No, sir; that is the land that was in these various 
levee districts that have been practically abandoned. 

The Chairman. Is the timber on these lands valuable, Colonel? 

Mr. Townsend. Yes, sir; the timber on the lands that have not 
been cut off—that is, not second growth—is very valuable. 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 365 

The Chairman. Colonel, what would you suggest as to the relation 
the Government should sustain toward these levees? Would you 
have the same relation that the Government sustains now continue 
or would you change it? 

Mr. Townsend. I think it is advisable for the same relation to 
exist that we now have; that the levee boards should supervise the 
work which they do with the cooperation of the Government. 

The Chairman. That the Government should not have any re¬ 
sponsibility beyond that of assisting in their construction and main¬ 
tenance. 

Mr. Townsend. I think we have achieved very good results by the 
method that we have employed. It is unscientific, but the results are 
very good. 

The Chairman. Will you give your reasons, Colonel? 

Col. Townsend. These people are appropriating their money for 
levee construction and they have a right to expend their money 
where they deem it most advisable. The Mississippi River Commis¬ 
sion aids and assists them. It expends the money where it considers 
it most advisable, and while it would appear that such a course would 
be inadvisable, I have not seen any evidence to indicate but that 
everything was moving very smoothly. 

The Chairman. At present, I believe the Government of the 
United States is not responsible for any damages that may be sus¬ 
tained by any breakage in the levees. 

Col. Townsend. Not under existing conditions. 

The Chairman. Is it your opinion that if the relations were 
changed the Government would then become liable? 

Col. Townsend. That would be a question of law I would not like 
to answer. 

The Chairman. I believe there has been a recent decision by the 
Supreme Court of the United States, which involved the liability of 
the Government for overflows? 

Col. Townsend. That was outside of the levee line. 

The Chairman. Yes; I know, outside the levee line. You have 
not the decision, have you ? 

Mr. Percy. The decision was that the Government was not re¬ 
sponsible for raising the flood line or diminishing the value of the 
lands in the Mississippi Valley, and the courts have also held that 
the boards are not responsible for a failure to maintain the levees so 
as to afford protection to the land behind the levees. 

Mr. Taylor. Going back to the contracting business, your idea was 
if you had a large amount to expend the contractors would probably 
make prices higher. Don’t you think the larger the amount the more 
the contractors would charge? 

Col. Townsend. I did not intend to make exactly that statement. 
What I intended to state was that if the appropriations are irregu¬ 
larly made, so that we have one year a small appropriation and the 
next year a large appropriation, then there was danger, when we had 
those large appropriations, of not having the contractors to do the 
work and then having a combination. If we have a uniform system 
that we know about of making appropriations, we will get the con¬ 
tractors who will do the work, but if we are working irregularly it 
will sometimes happen, as it is happening now, that we will have 

30573°—H. Rep. 300. 63-2. pt 2-24 


366 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


more work than the contractors can do or not have sufficient con 
tractors. 

Mr. Donohoe. And the contractors will be engaged in other work ? 

Col. Townsend. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Taylor. And your idea is that whatever appropriation is 
made ought to be fixed, ought to be made in that time, and the time 
is about as important as anything else? 

Col. Townsend. There should be uniformity as to amount. 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. What we call a continuing con¬ 
tract. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. If $20,000,000 worth of work 
would have to be done in six months, being emergency work, under 
such conditions you would probably pay more than if you expended 
that money over a period of a year. 

Col. Townsend. I can illustrate very forcibly how that occurs. If 
it is necesssary to close a break in a short time the Government has to 
pay for it. 

Mr. Percy. The last river and harbor bill contained a provision 
extending the jurisdiction of the commission over the levees up to 
Rock Island and an appropriation to make an investigation of the 
levees up to that point. Have they made that investigation ? 

Col. Townsend. We have just finished an inspection. 

Mr. Percy. You have not made any report? 

Col. Townsend. I am one of a committee of two to submit the re- . 
port at the present time, but I have not had time since the commis¬ 
sion adjourned to meet with the other member and submit the report. 

Mr. Percy. How soon do you expect to submit a report? 

Col. Townsend. In a short time. 

Mr. Switzer. What is the width of the territory between those two 
levees on either side of the river, on an average ? 

Col. Townsend. I should say it would average between 3 and 4 
miles. 

Mr. Switzer. How much of that would be water ? 

Col. Townsend. One-third of it. In low water it would be less 
than a third of it, but during high water it would be the entire area. 

Mr. Taylor. I wanted to ask you your opinion as to the coopera¬ 
tion between the Federal Government and the States in the matter 
of the appropriation. 

Col. Townsend. You can not consider the State in this matter at 
all. The States themselves are not interested. For instance, Mis¬ 
souri has but a very trifling portion of this valley that is overflowed. 
We have to treat with levee districts, with the instrumentalities 
which the States have created to handle levee matters. 

Mr. Taylor. Is it not a fact that if this great section in those 
States is open to cultivation it will be a benefit not alone to that sec¬ 
tion, but to the State as a whole ? 

Col. Townsend. Undoubtedly. 

Mr. Taylor. But the States themselves will take that into con¬ 
sideration. 

Col. Townsend. No. I can state that there is a great deal of rivalry 
in these States, I may almost say ill feeling, between the highlands 
and the lowlands. I do not know about the political aspect of the 
question, but there is evidence to my mind that there exists sufficient 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 367 

feeling so that it is difficult to pass bills through the State legisla¬ 
tures in reference to the matter. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. They do not consider it a State 
matter, but they do consider it a national matter? 

Col. Townsend. That may be. 

The Chalrman. I understood you to say awhile ago, in substance, 
that if the work went on about as it has been going on the past two 
years, and we should pursue the policy of appropriating $6,000,000 
and expending about four millions on levees—if the work went on 
that way, would that about meet the requirements? 

Col. Townsend. We can readily expend the $4,000,000 for levees 
that you have appropriated heretofore, and do it very advantageously. 

The Chairman. What would you say as to the relative merits of 
the two propositions of appropriating the entire sum in 5 years, or 
in 10 years? 

Col. Townsend. I will state that we have a levee line that is ade¬ 
quate for ordinary floods. Within the last 30 years there have been 
but three floods that have occurred which I think would seriously 
endanger the levee line. There might be occasional breaks, but I 
think we could reasonably hold the levee line against any flood ex¬ 
cept the ones of 1882, 1912, and the second flood of 1913. The ques¬ 
tion is, When will another flood like those of 1912, 1913, and 1882 
occur? If that did not occur in 10 years, we would be in fair con¬ 
dition. If it should occur before that time, we will again have a 
desperate struggle to hold our levees. 

I want to say also that in the flood of 1913, which was as great 
a flood as the flood of 1912, we were very much more successful in 
our efforts to hold the levees than in 1912, but it cost us over $1,000,000 
to do it. We felt that we had to do whatever we could for that pur¬ 
pose, and we poured money in, and held those levees, I think, very 
successfully. 

The Chairman. In ordinary floods when breaks occur in the levee 
is it by reason of inherent weakness in the levee or because of the 
overflowing of the levees—because the water runs over the top and 
washes it away ? 

Mr. Townsend. You said ordinary floods? 

The Chairman. Yes. 

Mr. Townsend. We have built our levee sufficiently high so that 
when there is a break in ordinary floods the breaks occur in the foun¬ 
dations. 

The Chairman. You spoke of ordinary floods. 

Mr. Townsend. In ordinary floods. If we have a flood of 1,750 
cubic feet per second- 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington (interrupting). Seventeen hun¬ 
dred and fifty thousand. 

Mr. Townsend. Yes; 1,750,000 per second, instead of 2,000,000, 
which was the maximum discharge of the flood of 1912. We would 
carry that flood down without danger to our levee system. We 
would have to struggle at a great many places and fight to prevent 
those levees from being breached where they had not adequate width 
of foundation, but we would have a reasonable chance to hold such 
a flood through the valley. 

The Chairman. It would not go over the tops of the levees? 


368 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


Mr. Townsend. No; it would not go over the tops of the levees. 

The Chairman. I think you stated when you were before us before 
that your purpose was in many places to widen the levees. 

Mr. Townsend. Yes, sir; to get a wider base is one of the most 
necessary things we have to do. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. As I understand you, you are in¬ 
clined to the opinion that it would be more economical to expend this 
money in a period of 10 years rather than 6 years? 

Mr; Townsend. No, sir; we can expend it as economically in 6 years 
as we can in 10 years, and if we should happen to have a flood in the 
interim it would be more economical. 

Mr. Switzer. What do you say as to the ability of the commission 
to expend this money economically—this money asked for in this 
bill—within the time provided in the bill ? 

Mr. Townsend. I think we could expend it economically within 
that time. 

The Chairman. What do you think of the policy of fixing the 
amount, the proportion the Government is to expend, in any piece 
of legislation in this or any other bill ? 

Mr. Townsend. I think it would be a very wise policy. 

The Chairman. Do you think it would be wise to give discre¬ 
tionary power? 

Col. Townsend. I think there should be an incentive for these 
people to make appropriations themselves. 

The Chairman. Do you think that in any legislation it would be 
good policy to fix the amount the Government is to expend in the 
localities in which it is to be used, along with what the localities 
must expend, and then to leave with the engineers the option of 
expending it wherever they see proper ? 

Col. Townsend. If you pass a bill like that with that proviso in 
it, my impression is the commission would feel compelled to only 
expend funds in given districts where the localities had put up the 
amount which you specified, and that they would limit their recom¬ 
mendations to such districts and to amounts to correspond to what¬ 
ever you stated was necessary. 

The Chairman. Then it would work out this way: That the 
stronger—the richer districts would get the greater part of the money 
that the Government expends. 

Col. Townsend. Not in the proportion that that bill states, but if 
you made it a higher percentage I think that would be so. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. If you did not do this, would you 
not find that you would be asked by districts to make the improve¬ 
ment and that they would insist they were too poor and that they 
could not possibly do their part? 

Col. Townsend. I have to listen to a great many stories of that 
kind. 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. Do you not think it is a great in¬ 
centive for them to know that the Government is ready to help—a 
great incentive to getting them to do it? 

Mr. Townsend. I think it would be very good policy to introduce 
that clause. 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. The fact of the matter is that 
some of the rich districts would have to put up money for some of 
the poorer districts because they are protected by the line that runs 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI FIVER. 369 

in front of the poorer districts. For instance, in Louisiana, the 
Louisiana people would have to put up the money to build the 
Arkansas levee. 

Col. Townsend. The Tensas district is part in Louisiana and a 
part in Arkansas, and for years the people of the Tensas basin in 
Louisiana have expended money on levees in Arkansas to protect 
themselves. 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. This bill provides for that. It is 
so worded here that the Louisiana people can contribute to that dis¬ 
trict. 

Mr. Townsend. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. Colonel, you would not think under the present 
conditions of this bill that you could use money put up by one dis¬ 
trict to build levees in another district without the consent of such 
district ? I believe the provision of this bill is a little stronger than 
that. It says: “ But no appropriations made by any State or district 
shall be expended in any other State or levee district except with 
the approval of the authorities of the district so contributing.” 
That would prevent you from doing that, would it not ? 

Mr. Townsend. Without you had the consent of the district, but 
I do not think there would be much question but that such consent 
would be granted. 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. That is the purpose of that lan¬ 
guage. Of course Louisiana would consent to it. 

Mr. Percy. I would like to ask Col. Townsend if he has such an 
acquaintance with the financial condition of the various levee boards 
as would enable him to answer this question: Do you not believe 
that under the conditions obtaining in the various levee districts* 
their depleted treasuries, their outstanding bonded indebtedness, 
their inability to raise the necessary money, that the proportion fixed 
in this bill is as great an amount of money as they can raise within 
the time given? 

Mr. Townsend. With many of the districts I think that is true. 
There are certain districts that I do not think would have such great 
difficulty. 

Mr. Percy. And the districts that would have the least difficulty 
are the districts that would require the least part of this appropria¬ 
tion. In other words, in the upper districts they could raise their 
proportion very easily and would require less aid from the Govern¬ 
ment than the weaker districts would. 

Mr. Townsend. The upper districts would be amply able to sup¬ 
ply considerable more work than is necessary for them to receive 
after they got their levee line completed, and there are districts in 
Louisiana that are in very much more flourishing condition than 
other districts. Those districts would have no trouble whatever in 
complying with the requirements of that act, but there are other dis¬ 
tricts that would have to strain to their utmost to comply with it. 

Mr. Percy. Then, on the whole, do you not believe that the re¬ 
quirement is a fair and reasonable one and is as much as could be 
responded to by the districts as a whole? 

Mr. Townsend. As an average; yes, sir. 

The Chairman. If the States, though, are to aid, it would be much 
easier for them to do this part themselves. 


370 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 


Col. Townsend. Of course, if the States will appropriate certain 
funds, that will aid us a great deal and make it so much easier for the 
localities. 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. Colonel, I do not understand you 
as objecting to this provision in the bill, “ Provided , That such con¬ 
tributions shall be expended under the direction of the commission 
and in such manner as it may require and approve ”? 

Col. Townsend. I should accept that if it is the will of the 
committee. 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. Now, as to the continuing con¬ 
tract, do you think it is necessary for us to provide by law so as to 
have that matter absolutely determined ? Whatever amount the com¬ 
mittee is going to allow ought not the amount to be fixed for a cer¬ 
tain number of years, say five years, which would enable you to do 
the work much more economically than by having an appropriation 
from year to year? 

Col. Townsend. It would be decidedly better policy to have a uni¬ 
form system covering a number of years. 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. Do you remember, for instance, in 
the bill of 1910, which undertook to provide for this revetment work, 
the estimate was eighty millions or dollars,' to be completed in 20 
years—that is, four millions a year—and so we appropriated four 
millions, and the very next year some sort of exigencies arose—I do 
not know what, financial or political, or some sort—at any rate, the 
very next year the committee cut it to three millions, and the next 
year to three millions, but the Senate raised it to three and one-half 
millions, so that the mere declaration in the bill as to what the next 
Congress ought to do would not provide that definiteness that you 
think is desirable and economical ? 

Mr. Humphrey of Washington. I do not see how we can help it 
very much; the next Congress can change their minds if they wish. 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. That is true. The only way to 
make it definite is to make an authorization to run through a num¬ 
ber of years, whether great or small. In your opinion, is that the 
economical way to do it? 

Col. Townsend. Yes; I think so. 

The Chairman. That is the same with any large proposition, 
Colonel. 

Mr. Taylor. That brings up the old question of continuing con¬ 
tracts. 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. The reason for it is much stronger, 
however, in this particular instance than in the ordinary continuing 
contract work, for the reason that while we might let a contract, as we 
sometimes do, for a dam one year, and the next year provide for the 
lock, the dam is there when we come to put the lock in, although it may 
be a year or two afterwards, but we may put a levee in one year and 
the next year come back and there is nothing but a hole in the ground. 

Mr. T. G. Dabny. Will you permit me, gentlemen, to say a word ? 

The Chairman. With pleasure, Major. 

Mr. Dabny. I find in the district over which I preside that the 
increasing distances that it is necessary to haul material over now 
has come to make it necessary to give contractors two years in 
which to perform their contracts. I can not let them have it by 


FLOODS AND LEVEES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 371 

the fragment of a year. They have not time to get through with it 
in that time, and I am obliged to give them two years’ time. 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. I am much obliged for that infor¬ 
mation, Major. Maj. Dabny is thechief engineer for the upper Yazoo 
district, which has the best levees on the face of the earth. 

Mr. Percy. I would like to ask another question. Colonel, is it not 
true that the economical method of doing this work, in order to 
minimize the chances of loss by flood waters, is to do it just as fast 
as the dirt can be placed upon the levees without wasteful expendi¬ 
ture? 

Mr. Townsend. Unquestionably; if you do not go beyond the limits 
of economy. 

Mr. Percy. And this bill, in your judgment, does not go beyond 
the limits of economy ? 

Mr. Townsend. No, sir; it does not. 

Mr. Percy. I would like to say, before I leave, that we all know 
this is a great and important subject and naturally gives us all great 
concern and calU for our best thought and judgment. We feel that 
we have put the matter into the hands of men w r ho are going to treat 
us liberally, and I want to say that I appreciate your courtesy. 

The Chairman. I feel myself—and I know I can speak for the 
committee—that we have benefited very materially by this hearing. 
The men who appeared before us are well posted on the subject, and 
I feel that we have all the information we could get by such a hear¬ 
ing. We will give it all very careful consideration. We have to 
take into consideration, however, very many things, as you know, but 
we will, as I say, give the matter the careful consideration its very 
great importance demands. 

Mr. Humphreys of Mississippi. For the moral effect that they may 
have—although I do not want to overpower you—here are some peti¬ 
tions, signed by 20,000 people, and you can look over them at your 
leisure. 



INDEX. 


Page. 

Abert, Col. J. J., report of__ 24 

American Society Civil Engineers, discussion of_ 227 

Area of the Deltas_ 51 

Arthur, Chester A., statement of_1_ 10 

Austin, O. P., address of_ 71 

Bed of river, effect of levees on the_36,107 

Benton, Thomas H.: 

Statement of_ 9 

Letter of_ 76 

Bernard and Totten reporjt_ 21 

Blanchard, Gov. N. C., argument of_ 89 

Bryan, William J., declaration of_ 11 

Burrows committee report_ 33 

Bush, B. F., statements of_ 53, 68, 301 

Calhoun, John C.: 

Statements of_9, 21, 76 

Report of_ 22 

Caldwell, A. S., statement of_^_ 248 

Casey, Maj. Thomas L., letter from_!_ 238 

Ca tellings, Gen. T. C.: 

Brief of_ 77 

Statement of_i 275 

Caving banks_59,109 

Chicago convention_ 23 

Clay, Henry, statement of_10, 20 

Cochran, Alexander G., statement of_ 268 

Collapse of local levee system_ 18 

Commoner, editorial from the_ 11 

Comstock, Gen. C. B.: 

Statement of_ 172 

Letter from_ 240 

Constitutionality of the legislation_ 76 

Cooley, Lyman E., statement of_-'- 60 

Cotton, exports of_ 52 

Cut-offs___ 166 

Damage to railroads by floods_ 68 

Debates in Congress_ 27 

Drainage area upper valley_ f 44 

Effect of levees on river bed_36,10 1 

Egypt, cotton growing in_ 52 

Eliot's report_16, 25, 45 

Ellis, E. John, report of_ 34 

Emergency campaigns, expense of- t 7 

Ernst, Col. O. H., letter from- j- 239 

Fairchild, Charles S., statement of- 247 

Farm development and flood volume- 40 

Farm values of States- 44 

Federal aid, fight for- 20 

Fish, Stuyvesant, statement of- 65 

Flood heights, table of- HI 

Flood volume_ 46 

Fox, S. Waters, statements of-2-63,148 


373 



















































374 


INDEX 


Page. 

Garfield, James A., statement of_30, 29 

Gauge readings, table of_ 111 

Gillespie, Gen. G. S., letter from_ 240 

Hayes, Rutherford B., statement of_ 10 

Harrod, B. M., address by_ 227 

History of levees_ 13 

Huhlien, Charles F., statement of_ 267 

Humphreys and Abbot’s report_16, 28 

Humphreys, Gen. A. A., report of_ 25 

Industrial development in the deltas_ 42 

Interstate commerce, levees an aid to_ 56 

Johnson. Andrew, statement of_ 10 

Justification of the levee theory_ 227 

Killough, O. N., statement of_ 272 

Kingman. Capt. Dan C.. statement of_ 219 

Leach. Capt. Smith S., statement of_ 204 

Lincoln, Abraham, statement of_ 10 

Local contributions_ 49 

Low-water records_ 1S1 

McCulloch, Judge E. A., statement of_ 317 

Memphis convention_ 21 

Mississippi River Commission: 

Creation of_ 27 

Levee building under_28. 31 

Mississippi Valley, value of products of the_ 65 

National problem? Is it a_ 47 

Navigation, levees an aid to_ 56 

Nelson committee, report of the_ 39 

Nile, levees on the_ 14 

Normoyle, Maj. James E.. report of__ 44 

Ockerson, Maj. J. A., letter of_ 235 

Oliver, R. B.. statement of_ 305 

Outlets_ 106 

Panama Canal’s relation to the Mississippi_ 70 

Parker; John M., statement of_ 241 

Percy, LeRoy, statements of_ 19, 53, 254, 333 

Pillsbury, Charles A., statement of_ 65 

Platforms of the parties_^_ 47 

Presidential candidates, 1912, statements of_ 48 

Race question and levees_ 248 

Railroad rates and river transportation_ 64 

Railroads, damage to, by floods_ 68 

Reclamation, not a question of_ 48 

Reforestation_103,317 

Reservoirs_.._104.118 

Revetment necessary without levees_-_i___ 60 

Roosevelt, Theodore, statement of_T_ 11 

Ross, William P., statement of_ 326 

Sand bars—cause and effect_ 58 

Scientific American, editorial_ 111 

Smith, M. F., statement of_ 243 

Sommerville, Robert, letter from_ 7 

Statesmen, indorsements of various_ 9 

Suter, Col. Chas. H., statement of_ 194 

Swamp act_ 15 

Table of gauge readings_ 111 

Taft, W. H„ statement of_•_ 11 

Taxation in the local districts_31, 58 

Taylor, Judge R. S., statements of_ 62. 67,125 

Thomas, John R., report by_ 34 

Townsend, Col. C. McD.: 

Memphis address of_ 102 

Report to President, on floods of 1912-13___ 4 

St. Louis address of_ 115 

Statement of_ 354 

































































INDEX 


375 


Page. 

Tyler, John, statement of_ 9 

Unearned increment_ 50 

War between the States, disaster of the___ IT 

Warren Commission, report of_ 2G 

West, Capt. Chas. H., statement of___ 58 

Will cocks, Sir William_ 13 

Wilson, H. G., statements of___66,161 

Wilson, Gen. James II.. letter from_ 180 

Wright, Gen. Lake E., statement of_ 293 


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